WASHINGTON, D.C. — A county official has been named to a prestigious post on a national board that could give the Valley a louder voice.

Mahoning County Engineer Patrick Ginnetti was elected as the Northeast Region Vice President of the National Association of County Engineers (NACE) at its recent annual meeting and technical conference. Ginnetti’s term will run through April 2028.

“It is an honor and privilege to serve the nation’s county road professionals this year,” Ginnetti said. “County infrastructure is where the rubber meets the road. With infrastructure a national priority, I look forward to joining the nation’s county road professionals to ensure our national transportation network remains strong, safe and secure.”

Ginnetti has been county engineer since Jan. 7, 2013. He also served as the 2024 president of the County Engineers Association of Ohio and remains active in its Surveying/GIS, Roadway/Utility and Legislative committees.

A news release from NACE explains that it is a nonprofit, nonpartisan professional association in its 70th year, representing more than 3,000 county road officials and related professionals in the U.S. and Canada. The release states that local roads account for about 75% of highways and roads in the country, or 2.93 million miles. Counties manage 1.74 million miles of those roads. Counties also own 231,000 bridges and operate one-third of the nation’s transit systems.

Ginnetti will represent the interests of county engineers in Ohio, New York, New Jersey, Indiana, Michigan and Ontario, Canada. He said he hopes to learn from his colleagues in the region and across the country. He said he also expects that Mahoning County may enjoy some unique benefits.

“It’s going to definitely give Mahoning County some exposure on a national level,” he said. “NACE does DC fly-ins to talk with legislators about issues like highway funding. With the national transportation bill going for reauthorization, for the Valley to have some voice down there and recognition, that’s going to take us pretty far.”

Ginnetti notes that Mahoning County’s geographic position is rather special.

“The amount of traffic that passes through Interstate 80 between Chicago and New York, that is one of the main transportation routes for the entire country,” he said.

That is in addition to Mahoning’s location between Cleveland and Pittsburgh and its proximity to cities like Columbus, Cincinnati, Detroit, Buffalo and Erie. About 35% of the U.S. population lives between Chicago and New York, which Ginnetti said was one of Hollywood Casino’s major considerations when the company decided to build the racino in Austintown.

Ginnetti has most recently overseen the three-year, $20 million Western Reserve Road widening project from Hitchcock Road to South Avenue.

Begun in 2023, it involves widening the road and adding a central dual-left turning lane and new traffic and railroad signals. The contractor is Marucci and Gaffney Excavating of Youngstown. The project is expected to wrap up in the late summer or early fall.

Just this month, utility companies began advance work along Glenwood Avenue at Wildwood Drive in Boardman in anticipation of the county’s $9 million project to reduce the road from four lanes to two with a central turning lane between Midlothian Boulevard and Western Reserve Road, and install a roundabout at Wildwood. Ginnetti said the project has not been bid yet. Bids will be open in May, and the job should be awarded in early summer.

Ginnetti also has been beating the drum in recent months to boost support for a renewal of the county’s 0.25% sales tax. Attending local government meetings since February, Ginnetti has noted that his office is not funded by property taxes. As such, roads in the county are only paved with the engineer’s office budget, which comes from gasoline taxes and motor vehicle license and title fees.

Whatever additional support the county receives usually only comes in the form of Ohio Public Works Commission grants. Ginnetti said the sales tax — of which 35% to 40% is paid by non-county residents — generates about $10 million per year, which is split into $4 million for the county, $4 million split among the townships, and another $2 million for bridge repair and replacement, overseen by Ginnetti’s office.

The county is on pace to pave 250 miles of road with the $50 million the tax generated over the lifetime of its first five years.