YOUNGSTOWN — City council again rejected Councilwoman Amber White’s request to repeal $1.3 million in American Rescue Plan spending for a park project sponsored by her predecessor.

The 4-2 council vote against White’s legislation Wednesday was essentially pointless as the board of control earlier in the day voted 3-0 to enter into a fiscal agreement with the Youngstown Foundation to turn Ipe Park on East Midlothian Boulevard into an all-inclusive park using the ARP money.

White, I-7th Ward, said there’s been “little to no transparency, questions over funding, there’s no data to back up what little plan there is to show that it is a viable project,” and it should be repealed.

White said people were lied to about matching money for the park and the location was never researched as to how an all-inclusive park would fit there.

Except for Councilwoman Samantha Turner, D-3rd, who voted with White, no other council member at Wednesday’s meeting said anything about the request.

White unsuccessfully attempted Feb. 21 to repeal the legislation for the park approved by council at the request of Basia Adamczak in her final meeting on Dec. 20 as the 7th Ward councilwoman. Turner and White were the only council members to back the repeal.

Asked about calling a special board of control meeting to be held before council, Mayor Jamael Tito Brown, the board’s chairman, said: “We’ve been working on this since December with the Youngstown Foundation. It was finally ready to go.”

The total cost of the project isn’t known, with Brown saying: “It will be done in phases.”

White questioned the location of the park as it’s near a fire station, Interstate 680 and on Midlothian Boulevard — which she said isn’t conducive to children on the autism spectrum.

Three residents of the 7th Ward, with children on the autism spectrum, spoke in support at Wednesday’s meeting of White’s efforts to repeal the legislation. Also, Nyasia Lewis, secretary to the parks and recreation director, spoke against repealing, saying the concerns aren’t about the project but who controls the $1.3 million.

During the Dec. 20 meeting, council voted on ordinances sponsored by Adamczak to spend the remaining $1,443,074 left in her ward’s $2 million ARP allocation.

At that Dec. 20 meeting, Adamczak said she worked on the ARP projects, particularly Ipe, for a long time and plenty of money was going into the neighborhoods. She also said the decision was made after talking to ward residents.

But White said Wednesday that the vote among 7th Ward residents is 20-to-1 against the project being located at Ipe.

White also tried Wednesday to repeal legislation approved by council on Dec. 20 – and sponsored by Adamczak – to have the Youngstown Neighborhood Development Corp. serve as the fiscal agent with specific allocations for specific neighborhood organizations.

White said the legislation’s language is too specific and YNDC should remain as fiscal agent and give the money to organizations in the ward based on proposals. Ian Beniston, YNDC’s executive director, agreed as long as the agency remained the fiscal agent.

At the recommendation of the administration, council decided to give the proposal a first reading Wednesday and the law department will amend it for the April 17 meeting to remove the specific allocations for the various organizations.

AMBULANCE SERVICE

City council voted Wednesday to hire Public Consulting Group LLC of Boston for $44,500 to conduct a feasibility study for a city-run ambulance service.

Council voted Nov. 1 to move ahead with the study after postponing or rejecting the proposal at six other meetings dating back to February 2023.

It took the administration six months to select Public Consulting after getting two proposals.

Brown said of the lengthy delay: “I go where council tells me to go. I have to wait for council to authorize the payment.”

That legislation also included a review of city fire station locations and where to put a possible safety complex with a spending limit of $65,000.

The safety complex locations is part of a $1.5 million design contract, using ARP funds, that council approved March 26.

Kramer and Associates of Cincinnati, which sought to do the ambulance feasibility study, will do the fire station location study for $9,500, said fire Chief Barry Finley.

The ambulance study should take about six to nine months to finish while the fire station report will take less time, Finley said.

Finley had initially proposed hiring Public Consulting over a year ago. Some council members were critical after Finley said he found the company while doing a Google search. Council members insisted that an open search be done — and the administration selected Public Consulting after that.

Public Consulting would be done with its study no earlier than October, under Finley’s estimate, which would be close to two years since the idea was first proposed.

Finley said at a June 2023 council safety committee meeting that it is not financially feasible for the city to operate its own ambulance service, but would abide by the study’s results.

The city locked itself into a three-year agreement in December 2022 to pay $3.968 million to Emergency Medical Transport for ambulance service using ARP money with a two-year renewal option.