SitemapTwo of the three members of the city’s Board of Control
today approved a liability waiver related to a demolition project by the Ohio
National Guard, with the third member – Finance Director David Bozanich —
absent.
Bozanich has been largely absent from City Hall since Thursday, when
investigators executed search warrants Thursday at his house and that of his
reported girlfriend, along with two other locations. Speculation has centered
around a connection with the warrants executed in March at the offices of NYO
Property Group and the home of developer Dominic Marchionda. Kyle Miasek,
deputy finance director, said this morning he had been under the impression
Bozanich would be in the office today before being informed he would likely be
back Tuesday. The 50 members of the 112th Engineering Battalion were expected
to begin demolition today on the 28 residential structures, five on the North
Side and the rest on the South Side, Abigail Beniston, code enforcement and blight
remediation superintendent, said. They arrived Saturday, she reported. The
release from liability approved this morning by the board’s other two members –
Mayor John McNally and Law Director Martin Hume – absolves the Youngstown board
of Education from liability related to the battalion’s use of the former
Sheridan Elementary School, 3321 Hudson Ave. The battalion will store equipment
and setup its radio tower at the site, Beniston said. “It will be what they
operate out of while they’re in town,” she said. The guard is demolishing
through the South Side Blight Removal and Greening project through the
Department of Defense’s Civil-Military Innovative Readiness Training Program.
The demolition work is slated to run through July 22. The goal of the IRT
project will be to demonstrate that the training is a benefit to the Department
of Defense, so that can be leveraged into a larger IRT project of 100 to 200
houses, Beniston said. “We already do have applications in,” she confirmed. The
work getting underway today will save the city in the range of $159,000 in
demolition expenses, she said. To read the full story from the Business Journal, click here.