Neighborhoods

Accusations from some city council members that the Youngstown Neighborhood Development Corp. gives preferential treatment to certain areas of the city are wrong, its executive director said.

Ian J. Beniston, YNDC’s head, provided documents Thursday to The Vindicator previously given to council members showing that services — such as Paint Youngstown, which addresses problems such as roof replacement, minor repairs and house painting; and owner-occupied housing rehabilitation — are divided evenly among each of the seven wards.

“Every side of town is treated the same,” he said. “We own real estate and board up houses all over the city.”

The documents for 2012, 2013 and 2014 were provided after Councilwomen Annie Gillam, D-1st, and Janet Tarpley, D-6th, who are black, expressed concerns about past bias by the YNDC.

Council postponed a vote Wednesday on a $102,168-a-year contract with YNDC to supervise and manage a grass-cutting and property-cleanup program.

Gillam said the agency gave “the shaft to certain people all along, and I don’t want to be shafted again.”

Tarpley said, “We can’t act like race isn’t an issue when it’s an issue,” and “YNDC has a history with some of the council people.”

Gillam said Thursday that when the Paint Youngstown program started three years ago, most of the work went to the Idora Neighborhood on the city’s South Side. When YNDC was formed, Idora was the first neighborhood in the city to receive special attention from the agency.

“We didn’t mind some concentration on Idora, but we asked to make it even,” Gillam said. “We had frustration with unfair distribution.”

YNDC made the change to spread the resources evenly in each ward, Gillam said.

“They helped me, but it was after I squawked,” she said. “It is done after we’re yelling about the way they’re doing something.”

But Beniston said Gillam is wrong.

“It’s been shared evenly in each ward since we began,” he said.

Documents provided by Beniston show each of the city’s seven wards had five houses benefit from Paint Youngstown the past two years with the 7th Ward getting a sixth house in 2013.

The distribution wasn’t even in 2012 because of an issue with federal funds, according to YNDC records.

But in 2012, Tarpley’s 6th Ward had the most houses — 13 — benefit from the program; followed by 10 in the 3rd Ward; nine each in the 1st, 5th and 7th wards; and eight each in the 2nd and 4th wards.

Since 2012, YNDC chooses a house in each ward and pays for full rehabilitation of owner-occupied properties, including lead-abatement work, the agency’s records show.

Gillam said getting YNDC to help in her ward has “been a constant hassle,” and “we have to keep our eyes on it every year to push” for fairness.

Beniston, again, said that’s not true.

In support of Beniston’s statements, Councilman Paul Drennen, D-5th, said, “What I’ve seen with YNDC is they’ve been helpful. They do projects all over the city. With the paint program, every council member had an area that benefited from it. Also, a house in every ward was rehabbed. They’ve always been fair with every ward. They’re all over the place.”

Drennen added he doesn’t “like the fact [Gillam and Tarpley] turn it into a race issue. That’s not fair. I can’t believe they brought this up. I don’t know where they get their information.”

Records show Lots of Green, YNDC’s vacant-land reuse program, has done work most of its work in the 1st and 3rd wards. There’s been only one Lots of Green project in the 6th Ward and none in the 4th Ward.

“There has been targeting there” with Lots of Green, Beniston said in explaining the imbalance.

When asked if there are current problems with YNDC, Gillam said, “Right now, I don’t have any outstanding issues with them.”

Beniston said he’s been responsive to calls from all council members.

“If there are specific problems, we respond,” he said. “We can’t know about everything everyone needs. [Gillam and Tarpley] have provided information to us. They live in the wards and represent them. We can’t know about every problem. When they tell us, we respond to their concerns.”

But Gillam said she is concerned her ward won’t be treated fairly by YNDC if council hires the agency to supervise and manage about 20 low-income people, between age 18 and 24, to cut grass, clean debris and illegal dumping sites, do light landscaping and board up vacant structures.

Also, she wants to see YNDC’s plan for the program, and questions why the city is paying for equipment and gas.

“We may be able to get a better deal from someone else or do this through the park department,” Gillam said. “I’m not sure if it can be done by someone else for a lesser amount,” but the city should explore that possibility.

Drennen said private contractors charge about $35 to $50 a lot, and many don’t do a good job, compared with $7 to $10 under this proposal.

Council meets early next week to discuss hiring YNDC for grass cutting and property cleanup. Beniston said he’ll be at the meeting.

To read the full story at Vindy.com, click here.

Friday, March 20, 2015

On Tuesday, March 17th, YNDC held the first of 7 small business development classes with a full room.

Thirty-six aspiring business owners heard presentations from YNDC and The Ohio State University Extension staff, Patricia Veisz of the Ohio Small Business Development Center at YSU, and Terry Louk from Mahoning Valley Economic Development Corporation. Future classes will cover cash flows, budgeting, workflows and scheduling, and additional topics of use to new business owners. While the class series is full, additional one-time classes will be held in the fall. In addition, YNDC is offering individual credit counseling for new or existing small business owners and a small number of equipment loans. For information on these programs, please contact Liberty Merrill by phone at 330.480-0423 or via email, lmerrill@yndc.org.

Youngstown City Council members are ready to move forward with a program that will keep grass cut in the city.

It is a topic that has been discussed for some time now. Members of council said Monday’s meeting was very productive, and very different than the finance meeting last week on this same topic, which turned into an argument about race.

It was a much different tone on Monday.

“I think that they understood that if we did not these answers, we were not going to pass the legislation. That is the bottom line,” 6th Ward Councilwoman Janet Tarpley said.

She was one of the council members involved in the heated argument last week. The other was 4th Ward Councilman Mike Ray.

Tarpley said she got the answers on Monday that she was looking for last week. In a unanimous vote, council members approved funding for the program.

“I am comfortable with the way things went today. The fact that we are going to move forward, the fact that my residents are going to get what they deserve,” Tarpley said.

Beginning April 15, the Youngstown Neighborhood Development Corporation will be responsible for cutting grass taller than 6 inches, on both vacant and non-vacant lots in the city. During the next water bill cycle, residents will receive a notice about the new legislation.

If someone from the YNDC has to cut the grass, the cost will then be attached to the property owner’s water bill. That money will go to YNDC”s expenses, such as paying workers to do the job.

“We are not interested in being the grass cutters for everyone. That is why we have to charge people. That is why we have to look at cheaper ways to do it,” Youngstown Mayor John McNally said.

McNally said it is a huge project and it will be a lot of work, but it will be worth it in the end.

“I think a lot of neighbors and residents throughout the city, hopefully will be happy once we are able to get things rolling,” YNDC Director Ian Beniston said.

McNally said he plans to sign the legislation Tuesday to make the program official.

The Youngstown Neighborhood Development Corporation is looking to hire workers to cut grass. Beniston said job postings will be on the website as soon as this week.

To see the full story from WKBN, click here.

City council voted unanimously on the $102,168 contract with the Youngstown Neighborhood Development Corp. to supervise and manage a grass-cutting and property-cleanup program.

Starting April 15, YNDC will supervise and manage about 20 low-income people, between age 18 and 24, to cut grass, clean debris and illegal dumping sites, do light landscaping and board-up vacant structures. Some members noted that the meeting was more productive than last week.

“I think everyone is on the same page,” Councilwoman Janet Tarpley, D-6th, said.

To read the full story at Vindy.com, click here.

Tuesday, March 24, 2015

On Wednesday, March 18th, YNDC Executive Director Ian Beniston presented and lead a discussion on Data and Markets with Alan Mallach at the Center for Community Progress Leadership Institute held at Harvard University.

The Community Progress Leadership Institute is a core project of Community Progress and one of its most potent tools. The CPLI is designed to empower civic leaders with the comprehensive skills they need to tackle urban blight and revitalization, by helping them initiate and implement productive change in the ways they address vacant and abandoned properties.

A copy of the presentation can be downloaded below.

Tuesday, March 24, 2015

On Saturday, March 21st, residents, YSU students, and volunteers from Tabernacle Evangelical Presbyterian Church helped to get the community ready for spring by conducting a neighborhood-wide trash cleanup.

Over 50 bags of trash were removed from along Glenwood Avenue and the surrounding streets. The cleanup was sponsored in part by Green Youngstown, who provided gloves, trash bags, and trash pickers for the event.

City council members moved forward from last week’s heated debate on a grass-cutting and property-cleanup program.

Members voted unanimously at a special Monday meeting to have the Youngstown Neighborhood Development Corp. supervise and manage low-income, at-risk individuals to cut grass, clean up debris and illegal dumping sites, do light landscaping and board up vacant structures.

“I think everyone is on the same page,” said Councilwoman Janet Tarpley, D-6th.

The city will pay YNDC $102,168 to manage the program this year and provide equipment to the agency that will not exceed $175,000. The equipment still would belong to the city, Mayor John A. McNally said.

The mayor said the program will start April 15 with the focus on grass cutting for the first six months and board-ups during inclement weather.

“This will be done in every ward of the city,” he said.

During last Wednesday’s council finance-committee meeting, Councilwoman Annie Gillam, D-1st, expressed concern that the YNDC gives preferential treatment to certain wards because of racial bias.

However, Ian J. Beniston, YNDC’s executive director, later produced documents showing that its services are divided evenly among the seven wards.

After Monday’s meeting, Tarpley said the session went better than last week’s meeting.

“It was allowing everybody to speak,” she said, adding that she and Gillam wanted to ensure there is equal treatment for the wards.

Gillam said she is looking forward to the program.

“The whole city is important, and not just certain wards,” she added.

Beniston said the meeting was productive and that everyone’s questions were answered, and was pleased that council voted in favor of the legislation.

The next step will be to work with the city to purchase equipment and hire four supervisors, he said.

“We’re hoping to do that as quickly as possible,” Beniston said.

To read the full story at Vindy.com, click here. 

The city’s board of control finalized contracts to purchase grass-cutting and property-cleanup equipment and signed a deal to have the Youngstown Neighborhood Development Corp. oversee the work, a week after the proposal led to a heated debate.

The board of control approved the $102,168 annual contract Thursday with YNDC and also agreed to spend $86,989 on equipment, including industrial lawn mowers as well as trimmers, chain saws, blowers and a wood chipper.

YNDC will supervise and manage 20 low-income people, between 18 and 24 years old, who will cut grass, clean debris and illegal dumping sites, do light landscaping and board-up vacant structures.

Having YNDC do the work resulted in a heated discussion last Wednesday among members of city council and Mayor John A. McNally in which the agency was accused by a couple of council members of racial bias and preferential treatment to certain parts of the city.

“I was a little surprised it became controversial,” said McNally, the chairman of the board of control, about last week’s council meeting. “Every once in a while, there are meetings that go off the tracks.”

The contention last week from Councilwomen Janet Tarpley, D-6th, and Annie Gillam, D-1st, was that YNDC had not treated each ward fairly with previous programs. But documentation provided by YNDC showed services paid by the city were evenly divided among each of the seven wards.

Council met Monday to discuss the matter further and voted to give the board of control — the mayor, law director and finance director — authority to sign the contracts.

The work will begin April 15 with a focus on grass-cutting through Oct. 15, McNally said.

Private contractors cut 2,900 lawns last year with YNDC officials saying they can double that amount this year, according to the mayor.

To read the full story at Vindy.com, click here.

Thursday, March 26, 2015

On Wednesday, March 25th, Lincoln Knolls residents, city officials, and representatives from Habitat for Humanity, the Mahoning County Land Bank, and YNDC met to discuss the implementation of the Lincoln Knolls neighborhood action plan.

Attendees discussed a cooperative and strategic agenda to address property, infrastructure, and crime issues in the neighborhood. Prior revitalization efforts in Lincoln Knolls include an October 2014 community workday and vacant property cleanups by the AmeriCorps REVITALIZE Team. These efforts have resulted in 24 homes being boarded and cleaned up. In addition, YNDC has undertaken a vacant home rehabilitation and several owner occupied rehabilitation projects in Lincoln Knolls through the Paint Youngstown program. Habitat for Humanity has also recently built a new home in the neighborhood for a local family. These efforts have already shown immediate benefits in the community. Future cooperation between neighborhood residents, Lincoln Knolls Community Watch, Habitat for Humanity, YNDC, the Land Bank, and city officials will continue the commitment to the stabilization and revitalization of the Lincoln Knolls neighborhood.

Eric Moore wants to become a farmer.

The Iron Roots Urban Farm is giving him paid on-the-job training to help him achieve that goal.

Moore, 31, who lives on the North Side, became a trainee at the farm this month and will remain there until fall.

The 1.7-acre farm at 820 Canfield Road in the Idora Neighborhood on the city’s South Side is a project of the Youngstown Neighborhood Development Corp.

Now entering its fifth growing season, the farm will give preference to city residents as it seeks five more apprentices this year.

Moore said his goal is “to farm on probably a few abandoned lots around the city, just to help out the city — to beautify the city.”

The Chaney High School graduate’s passion for agriculture arose out of his having lived and worked for three months in the summer of 1996 on his uncle’s Tennessee farm.

“On this farm, I had some of the best times of my life, and I hope to recreate that here” at Iron Roots, Moore said.

“The trainers are great. Everybody is wonderful,” Moore said of his experience during his first week at the Canfield Road farm. “I wouldn’t dream of a better place or a better environment to work at.”

“I like being outside, I like working with my hands, and I like seeing something grow from the ground up,” Moore said.

Funded by federal, state and foundation grants and sales of produce grown there, the farm promotes food growth and business creation on vacant urban lots, facilitates healthful eating and educates local residents about good nutrition through healthful cooking classes.

Crops grown and harvested at Iron Roots are sold to local restaurants and to consumers at the farm, at farmers’ markets and through buying clubs.

Two of those farmers’ markets are the Northside Farmers Market, which operates on Saturdays most of the year, and YNDC’s own farmers’ market, which operates Tuesday afternoons and evenings, June through September, at Glenwood and Sherwood avenues.

Customers using Supplemental Nutrition Assistance Program electronic benefit-transfer cards can double their card value for eligible purchases at these farmers’ markets under a program sponsored by the Mercy Health Foundation.

“We can double your purchase, so if we take $20 off of your card, we will give you $40 to spend at the vendors on SNAP-eligible foods,” explained Liberty Merrill, YNDC’s land-reuse director.

“The purpose is to create more food access, to create jobs, to teach people about healthy eating and healthy living,” Ian Beniston, YNDC executive director, said of the Iron Roots project.

To prolong its growing season and increase its productivity, the farm starts seedlings under lights in its training kitchen building and grows plants in four aluminum-framed hoop houses of varying sizes, the largest being 30 by 120 feet.

The hoop houses feature translucent plastic covers, but they have no heat or light sources other than the sun. One hoop house is hard-sided, but the three others have sides that can be rolled up to let outside air in as the weather warms up.

Some hardy plants, such as spinaches, kales, mustard greens and carrots, spend the winter in a hoop house.

“We keep the ground from freezing by using our plastic cover, and then we use interior row covers as well to really keep the heat close to the ground” inside the hoop houses, Merrill explained.

Other plants get transplanted from the kitchen to a hoop house; and still others grow in a hoop house before being transplanted outdoors.

“Anything that we’re going to harvest early in the year is actually growing to maturity inside the hoop houses in the ground,” she explained.

“We want to stagger our harvests, so we want to have early tomatoes, middle tomatoes and late tomatoes. We will be starting things continuously from now through the season so that we have kale early and we have kale late,” Merrill said.

“We want to keep a really diverse product mix throughout the season and not have stuff just available in August,” Merrill said. “Our goal is to have food available all year-round.”

To read the full story at Vindy.com, click here.