YOUNGSTOWN — The Mahoning County commissioners approved a $2.1 million, 30-year agreement Thursday with the company Involta to set up a high-speed fiber optic data network for the county government’s 70 buildings.

The agreement also calls for the county to pay $40,000 per year for annual maintenance.

Jake Williams, information technology director for the county, said the investment of $2.1 million of the county’s $42 million in American Rescue Plan funds in the network puts Mahoning County in a leadership position among counties.

“We are a leader in this region,” Williams said. “This network is unlike anything this region has seen from a government standpoint. I know they have some things like this in Columbus, Cleveland. But for this area, it puts us a step ahead — really where we should be.”

The commissioners authorized the use of the $2.1 million at a meeting at the end of September, when Williams and Auditor Ralph Meacham explained that the money provides the county with six strands of fiber optic cable that the county can operate on its own, eliminating fees paid to AT&T and saving money in the long run.

The county government joins Involta’s Mahoning-Youngstown Ohio Regional Information System, which will speed up data retrieval and use to the end users of the county’s computer network.

Williams said owning the network also will allow the county to control its speed and grow its information network as needed in the future.

Meacham, who has oversight of the county’s information technology department, said Involta will run “spurs” off of the MYORIS data “railroad” to the county’s buildings. The MYORIS project is a private network, which is good because it will carry “a lot of confidential information,” Williams said.

Ron Latessa, area account manager for Involta, said laying down miles of “glass” fiber that “travels via light within the fiber” “is the future.” He said Mahoning County is “laying down is a future foundation 30 to 60 years of a fiber network in the county. … This is a vision that is ahead of its time. Not all counties and cities have done this,” Latessa said.

He said this network is “not transversing the internet to these different departments like you do now, so you have strong construction you can build on for decades.”

WATER DISTRICT

Addressing the commissioners Thursday was Rick Mastriana of Lake Milton, a retired real estate attorney who asked the board to continue to operate its Jackson Milton Metro Water District instead of selling it.

Many other people said something similar at a public hearing in North Jackson in July. None of the 22 people who spoke at the hearing wanted to see the county sell the water district to Aqua Ohio or the Youngstown City Water Department.

The commissioners approved a resolution in June to begin the process of selling the water district. That process includes setting the public hearing date and time and approving a resolution declaring it “necessary to sell the Jackson Milton Metro Water District Public Water System.”

But the commissioners also had received information from Aqua Ohio and Youngstown on their plans for running the system if they were able to purchase it. Commissioner David Ditzler said the county is losing about $600,000 per year running the water district, the county’s only water district.

The district has customers along Mahoning Avenue in Jackson Township, as well as some additional customers a short distance north and south of Mahoning Avenue on state Route 45 in North Jackson. It also serves an industrial area at Mahoning Avenue and Bailey Road in Jackson Township.

After the meeting, Commissioner Carol Rimedio Righetti said the board will not make a decision on whether to sell the water district until after it receives the results of a study to determine what the rates would need to be if the county continued to operate the system.

Commissioner Anthony Traficanti said he would like to settle the issue “sooner rather than later,” and the commissioners heard the residents “loud and clear” on what they would like.

When Ditzler was asked about the matter, he declined to address the question, saying he did not think it was worth talking about “one guy who came in here three months after the fact talking about the water district.”

The public hearing on the water district tok place three months ago.

erunyan@vindy.com