WARREN — Trumbull County commissioners in a 2-1 vote approved providing the organizers of Valley Vision 2050 with $1 million. It is designed to stabilize and expand existing businesses; increase public awareness of arts and cultural industries; increase public participation in workforce training; expand education and employment opportunities; and increase stability of nonprofit organizations and businesses.

The Trumbull commissioners will provide $500,000 to Valley Vision 2050 immediately and another $500,000 in mid-2024 if the organizers are able to show progression in their goals.

Commission President Denny Malloy and Commissioner Mauro Cantalamesa voted to supply the funds. Commissioner Niki Frenchko voted against providing the funds.

“This is a great investment into our future,” Malloy said. “We are investing our own money to our own people and using the talents of people we deal with every day.”

Malloy suggests the plan will allow the county to plug in some holes in the investment of the county’s nonprofit organizations and create better work environments for county residents.

The county has an estimated $210,000 in funds in the bank that can be used to contribute in this project.

“Rather that allowing it to sit in the bank, I rather it be used by our brilliant minded economic development people,” Malloy said.

Cantalamessa said the money being provided to Valley Vision 2050 will allow the county to do real economic development into to the county workforce, as well as providing grants and scholarships for Trumbull children.

“Communities that sit on their hands do not get anything,” Cantalamessa said.

“We have to be proactive and not reactive.”

Frenchko said she is against the 2050 plan because county leaders have not established either a capital improvement budget or a capital improvement plan.

“There is no preventive maintenance plan and our county-owned buildings are not graded,” she said. “The money needs to be in the bank to address emergencies.”

She also noted several of the organizations sponsoring Valley Vision 2050 — Eastgate Regional Council of Governments, Valley Partners, Western Reserve Port Authority, Youngstown Foundation and the Youngstown/Warren Regional Chamber — already have contracts to provide services for Trumbull County.

“They should already be working together,” Frenchko said. “When do we stop looking for ways to spend money. We should be looking at ways to save it and plan how to prevent emergencies.”

Mahoning County approved providing the full $1 million to Valley Vision 2050 on Nov. 30.

The plan is based, in part, on a study done by Ernst & Young in 2022 that received input from eight local focus groups, 38 interviews involving 80 local participants and 60 organizations, as well as input from JobsOhio, the state’s private, nonprofit economic development corporation and its Northeast Ohio partner, Team NEO.

Public input indicated that the Mahoning Valley needs “additional resources committed to marketing, recruitment of businesses into the community and other “project management in order to more effectively compete” with other regions of the country.

The goal of a planning effort is to “align stakeholders around a shared vision and goals for a community’s future economy.”