YOUNGSTOWN — The Board of Mahoning County Commissioners continued its streak of eventful meetings Thursday. The board moved the location for the meeting from its regular chambers in the basement of the Mahoning County Courthouse to the Youngstown Historical Center of Industry and Labor, also known as the Steel Museum, on Wood Street.

After a brief presentation about the museum from Director Jonathan Cambouris, commissioners heard from the public and offered praise to some of the county’s stars, be they athletes or longtime community servants.

Headlining the meeting was Mahoning County Job and Family Services Director Audrey Morales, whom commissioners said was just reappointed to another three-year term. Morales has had a roughly 40-year career with the county, starting out of high school, and working for much of her time in Adult Protective Services. She has spent the last seven years as JFS director.

“I have known Audrey for many moons,” said Commissioner Anthony Traficanti, who first began working with Morales when he was an assistant to U.S. Jim Traficant, seeking her help when residents called the congressman’s office with concerns about Medicaid and Medicare.

“And honestly her heart and soul is into this community; it’s into helping people, she has done it her entire career, and she is a role model for the state of Ohio as well as Mahoning County.”

Commissioners Carol Rimedio-Righetti and Geno DiFabio echoed Traficanti’s sentiments, noting that a call to Morales virtually guarantees an issue will be resolved immediately.

“Unfortunately, this area has a lot of need for the agency, and to have you run it the way you do, we’re just very proud to have you on board,” DiFabio said. “I’m glad I’ve become a friend and co-worker. We really do appreciate you, Audrey, and thank you for continuing to do what you do for the residents of the Valley.”

Morales’ department oversees services for Mahoning County’s 40,000 Supplemental Nutrition Assistance Program recipients and 77,000 Medicaid recipients.

As February is Black History Month, Morales reflected that she is the second black woman to hold the director’s position at JFS.

“I want to begin by thanking the commissioners for entrusting me with the opportunity to serve this community. Your confidence in me is not something I take lightly,” she said. “As I reflect on Black History Month and the African American women who paved the way before me, women who endured unimaginable obstacles so that doors like this could be opened, I recognize just how blessed I am.”

Morales remarked on the times in America’s history when black people did not work side by side with white people in county government and could not participate in the political process. They did not drink from the same water fountains, use the same bathrooms, eat in the same restaurants or stay in the same hotels, she noted.

Morales said she is one of three sisters to be raised by a single mother, the late Juanita Davis, who, like her daughter, spent 40 years serving the county as secretary to four Mahoning County prosecutors. Davis was left to raise the girls on her own after Morales’s father died when she was only 9 years old.

“My mom taught us the importance of hard work, the importance of education, and most importantly the necessity of a relationship with God, and those lessons shaped who I am today,” she said.

The board also recognized Youngstown State University football team quarterback Beau Brungard, who won the Walter Payton Award as the nation’s most outstanding player at the FCS level.

“For those who don’t know, for the level of football that YSU plays, that is akin to winning the Heisman Trophy,” DiFabio said.

“I’ve heard that with the new NIL rules…Beau was offered substantial money to leave YSU and take his talents to other places, and he said ‘No, I want to stay home.’ And that’s a testament to everything here and a testament to the history of Youngstown and the Steel Valley. God bless him, and I’m proud to be from the area where he is from.”

DiFabio also noted that Brungard is the son of former YSU QB Mark Brungard, who won back-to-back Division 1-AA championships in the 1990s under then head coach and now Lt. Gov. Jim Tressel.

BETRAS SINGS

County Information Technology director Mike Adams informed the audience he will give a brief presentation at next week’s meeting about the history of music and entertainment in the county.

He likely will not mention the performance given by local attorney and Board of Elections Chairman Dave Betras.

During the public comment period of Thursday’s meeting, Betras delivered a satirical and slightly musical criticism of commissioners, for what he has called their near malfeasance in failing to provide adequate accommodations for the Board of Elections. Betras has called the conditions at Oakhill Renaissance Place disgusting and unsafe, and last week threatened the board with a lawsuit.

Betras handed out typed copies of “The Shipwrecked BOE on a Deserted Island Song,” which he then proceeded to sing within his allotted three minutes at the podium.

The tune, loosely sung to the melody of the “Gilligan’s Island” theme song, includes such lyrics about the age and condition of the former South Side Hospital as:

“A building built when there were no cars,

No traffic, no commute,

And somehow that’s where ballots live…

Efficient? That’s disputed.”

It also castigated commissioners for moving too slowly on addressing the problems and finding the BOE a new home.

“For three long years, they’ve studied it, each hallway, pipe, and stair,

For three long years, they’ve studied hard, ‘we’re close,’ they all declare.

Yes, history repeats itself — that much they can assure

Why build a place that actually works? Just study three years more!”

His cover sheet for the five-page parody labeled DiFabio as “Gilligan,” Traficanti as “Skipper” and Rimedio-Righetti as “the Movie Star.”

Following Betras’ performance, DiFabio quipped, “I sure hope you’re a good attorney, because

you’d never make it as a singer.”