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YOUNGSTOWN -- The president of the NAACP Youngstown/Mahoning County Branch wants the county board of elections to move to the W.J. Cobbin Office Tower on the city's North Side, but the board's director said the facility doesn't meet its needs.
In a Monday letter to the board, James Brown, the NAACP local president, wrote Cobbin Tower, where the organization is headquartered, "deserves serious consideration. Based on the information available, the facility appears to satisfy the board's stated specifications while also offering substantial benefits to the citizens of Mahoning County."
But elections board Director Tom McCabe said there are issues with Cobbin. At the top of the list is there is no warehouse space, which is a requirement for any building for the board. Also, it's on multiple floors, which is also a concern as the board wants its offices on a single floor, McCabe said.
Board officials toured the building at 1350 Fifth Ave. about two months ago and told Cobbin's owner to provide information on building a warehouse, McCabe said. As of Monday, the board has heard nothing back, McCabe said.
"It's a nice building for someone, but not for the board of elections," McCabe said. "It's not cost-effective for the board. There's other properties in the city that work better for us. This did not stand out."
As for Brown's letter, McCabe said it "is disingenuous. I don't know what the NAACP knows about our operations. But I don't know what they don't get about it not fitting our needs. The building owner hasn't even provided us with specs after we asked for them."
In Brown's letter, he wrote: "We respectfully encourage the board to evaluate every proposed location using objective, transparent and publicly understood criteria, including accessibility by public transportation, compliance with operational requirements, parking availability, accessibility for individuals with disabilities, overall cost to taxpayers and the ability of the location to equitably serve residents throughout Mahoning County."
If that is done, Brown wrote, Cobbin "stands out because it appears to satisfy these important considerations."
Brown added: "History will remember not simply where the board chose to locate its offices, but whether that decision reflected a commitment to expand access, strengthening public trust, exercising responsible stewardship of taxpayer resources and serving every voter in Mahoning County."
McCabe said the board is focused on a location in Youngstown, but Cobbin isn't it.
After saying for more than three months that the former Bottom Dollar grocery store on the city's South Side was the top choice for its new home, elections officials said July 31 that they no longer see it that way and are considering another building.
Elections board officials won't say what building is now its top choice, but it's in Youngstown with enough interior space and parking to accommodate in-person early voters, equipment and parking.
McCabe said he didn't have an update Monday.
The board has spent almost 20 years at Oakhill Renaissance Place, a former hospital on the city's South Side. The board has talked for more than two years about relocating from the property on Oak Hill Avenue because of the building's condition.
McCabe said of Oakhill: "It has problems, but it's worked for us. The county's plan is to abandon the building (in a few years) so we aren't in a rush. We're not going to jump at any building."
The elections board voted 4-0 on July 7 to move ahead with relocating its warehouse and early-voting center from Oakhill to the former Bottom Dollar location on Glenwood Ave.
The plan would have required an agreement for the city to sell the former grocery store to the Western Reserve Port Authority in order for the board to lease it as well as approval by the county commissioners to pay for the needed upgrades.
But unlike previous conversations, the board voted on July 7 to have its operations, excluding the warehouse and early-voting center, at a planned county government center to be built by 2028 or possibly 2029 at the site of the former Eastern Gateway Community College building and parking deck downtown.
Elections officials had dismissed relocating to that proposed facility almost immediately after county commissioners in January signed an agreement with the WRPA for the project.
But that changed as part of a compromise to relocate to the former Bottom Dollar. Subsequent to that, the board's plan to occupy two buildings wasn't warmly received.
The undisclosed location is the board's top choice with Bottom Dollar as a backup plan.
The city of Youngstown is accepting requests for proposals for the former Bottom Dollar with 4 p.m. today as the submission deadline.
Bottom Dollar closed in January 2015 after the grocery store company was sold to Aldi Inc. It's been vacant ever since.