SitemapMembers of City Council and representatives of the administration of Youngstown Mayor Jamael Tito Brown met Wednesday afternoon as part of the ongoing process to determine how the city will spend its American Rescue Plan allocation.
The city was awarded $82.7 million in ARP funds and so far has spent or allocated about $27.5 million, according to the city’s website. That includes an allocation of $2 million for each of the city’s seven wards and $3.9 million for city revenue replacement.
Three ideas were discussed during the meeting that Fifth Ward Councilwoman Lauren McNally, who led it, characterized as a “working session.”
Among the items discussed was legislation council had requested from the law department to utilize ARP funds for parks, playgrounds and sporting venues.
Law Director Jeff Limbian said there were problems with some of the legislation because some of the documents lacked information the law department needed to vet the requests.
“You’re ultimately going to be making those decisions in terms of the appropriations but we wanted to make sure that there was a cooperative appreciation that the administration is going to have to actually administer those pieces of legislation,” Limbian said. “We wanted to have clear direction from you about what those pieces are doing so that they meet your intent.”
The law director also presented council members with a handout illustrating what other cities have done to draft requests that can serve as a “general guideline.” He stressed the need to remain consistent because both state and federal government will be auditing ARP spending to make sure funds aren’t misspent or misappropriated.
Among the items administration officials and council members also discussed was plans to utilize ARP funds for house repairs in the neighborhoods. Some council members have discussed wanting to do “some type of group program” utilizing a potion of their ward’s $2 million allocation, McNally said.
“So we thought perhaps we should discuss it as a group so that we had a holistic plan instead of us trying to do our own thing,” she said.
The city administration is “looking at housing initiatives as a whole,” Nikki Posterli, chief of staff to mayor Jamael Tito Brown and director of community planning and economic development, said.
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