YOUNGSTOWN — Mayor Derrick McDowell publicly apologized for a communications mixup during a recent tour by Mahoning County Board of Elections officials of a city property that initially had council members and others refused entry to the building and then had police called to it.

McDowell said during a Tuesday council community planning and economic development committee meeting that a board official wanted a brief, private tour of the former Bottom Dollar grocery store building Thursday. The board is considering relocating to the long-vacant building on the city’s South Side.

After Mike Drummond, the city’s buildings and grounds commissioner, wouldn’t let two council members — Julius Oliver, D-1st Ward, and Cynthia McWilson, D-6th Ward — and others inside for the tour, he finally agreed. McDowell said when he was on the phone with Drummond talking about letting people in, by “happenstance” he ran into police Chief Sharon Cole.

McDowell said Cole felt like officers should “just swing by and have someone check to make sure the situation is well and taken care of, and that was it. I see the perspectives that were shared after this story came out that it appeared like the cops were called to contain a situation and really it was just to ensure that everyone got in, got out.”

McDowell said: “My apologies to you all, members of council, the public and anyone who felt that this situation was a slight towards the public having access to that building. We weren’t prepared to see all those folks show up.”

At the time, Oliver blamed McDowell and told The Vindicator: “The mayor said I can’t go in and then calls the police. Who the (expletive) do you think you is? This ain’t no dictatorship. Who calls the police on city council for going into a building the city owns?”

On Tuesday, Oliver said it wasn’t McDowell’s fault.

Oliver told McDowell, “I understand it was a lapse in judgment and I appreciate the apology.”

Oliver said, “I don’t think any one of us on council ever want to feel like we’re being policed when we’re trying to do our due diligence.”

Oliver said he questions Cole’s judgment for having police cars arrive at the scene.

McWilson said Tuesday that “it did seem like we were almost criminals.”

She said she didn’t feel harassed, but “I did feel a certain type of way and I didn’t think it was appropriate.”

Board of elections officials said they were very pleased with the Bottom Dollar location.

Under former Mayor Jamael Tito Brown, the city initially set aside $1.5 million in ARP funding to renovate the 18,285-square-foot building, vacant since January 2015, with the Village of Healing operating an infant mortality clinic as the main tenant. About $300,000 of that $1.5 million was redirected.

City council agreed in 2024 to use $1.2 million in American Rescue Plan funds to turn the store into a community hub. But the ARP funds took care of only one-third of the building’s interior improvement work without touching the rest of it or much-needed repairs to its roof.

The building needs about $1.5 million more in improvements, which doesn’t include roof repairs, Oliver and McDowell said Tuesday.

DeMaine Kitchen, the city’s community planning and economic development department director, previously told The Vindicator that no more money would be spent on the property, the previous administration did a poor job with the remodeling and the city was looking to get rid of the building. Law Director Adam Buente said Tuesday that the Village of Healing never returned his calls and that an effort to get the Western Reserve Port Authority to manage the building was unsuccessful.

Kitchen said Tuesday: “Nothing is dead, but nothing is definite either.”

Kitchen said he hopes the elections board deal can be worked out.

But, Kitchen added, the cost to finish the building “seems to be too much” for the city to spend.

OTHER BUSINESS

City council plans to move ahead today with a request to give a $100,000 grant for storm water improvements to Four Lane Quick Stop.

The proposal was discussed at Tuesday’s committee meeting.

Kitchen reiterated what he said at a March 18 meeting that the Brown administration didn’t sign a deal for the funding with Four Lane, but the city still wants to help as the business is investing $2 million for a new gas station/convenience store at 3827 Market St. on the city’s South Side.

McDowell said a $500,000 city grant was given to the developers of the Mahoning National Bank Building, which is investing $18 million in its project so $100,000 for the $2 million investment was fair.

But McDowell said he didn’t want this to “open the floodgates” with other businesses requesting funding from the city.

The committee also addressed the potential renovation of 802 Elm St., which has been vacant since 2019.

BJSJ Family LLC of Poland, the building’s owners, received approval Oct. 7 from the city’s design review committee for exterior work as part of a proposed $1 million upgrade. That included eight apartments and a convenience store on the ground floor.

But Kitchen said nothing formal has been proposed.

“I don’t have a project,” Kitchen said.

Councilwoman Samantha Turner, D-3rd Ward, who represents that area, said any proposal that includes selling alcohol there is a nonstarter for her. She also mentioned that the precinct was voted dry, meaning alcohol isn’t permitted to be sold there.

“It is not a good fit for the neighborhood,” Turner said of a convenience store though she welcomes apartments there.