Question for the Mr. Swierz

[rusty river]

hmmm......

[rusty river]

Mr. Swierz, I was wondering which council members (if any) in the past have supported expanding the Housing Code Enforcement and Zoning departments' budgets in order to provide adequate code enforcement of the city's ordinances.

The city has 4,500 vacant structures, and this number is undoubtedly increasing on a monthly basis.
If our 3 building inspectors are really hustling, they can visit and assess each site ONCE a year...maybe. Add on top of that the 37,000 occupied structures in Youngstown. To inspect each of these properties once a year, our building inspectors would each have to visit about 60 sites every day. Since there are 7 working hours in a day, and factoring in an hour of total travel time, the inspector would only be able to spend about 5 minutes at each site. Factor in some time to fill out the necessary paperwork and documentation, and maybe that leaves 20 seconds for actual inspection.

The city has over 60,000 parcels, each with a specific zoning classification. Currently, Youngstown has ONE zoning inspector.

It is obvious that housing and property issues are a top priority for Youngstown's tax payers (and voters...), as this is usually the main topic of discussion at every single neighborhood meeting that I have personally attended.

My question is why don't the actions of council regarding the city budget reflect this priority?

And I know of one council member in particular who goes out of their way to stir up anger and resentment amongst constituents towards city hall, and particularly at the four individuals i mentioned above, all but saying its employees are lazy and incompetent.

Please explain to me how council expects us to believe that it has the city's best interests at heart, when its actions prove otherwise.

[john r. swierz]

        It is not exact, but close to 825 total. I would say that 75% of that number is Civil Service/Classified employees. The rest are what is called Management(unprotected) employees.  These numbers are public record and can be retrieved by calling the Human Resources Supervisor , Mrs. Marti Kane.  I served on the Ygn Fire Dept for 25 years and retired as a Captain.  Each  front line department could justify having more employees , but the finances are not there.  That is the reason that those departments react slowly most of the time.  Example, it is hard to have an effective Housing inspection division when there are only 4 Inspectors to inspect the entire city, and so on..........

[Mary]

Mr. Swierz do you know how many employees are on the Youngstown City payroll? Total union and non-union as of the end of the fiscal year 2008? I have reviewed the audited 2006 and unaudited 2007 reports and could not find this information.