WARREN - Community Development Director Michael Keys said the rejection of a multi-jurisdictional grant for $32.4 million in Neighborhood Stabilization Program funds will not deter him from working on other collaborative projects.
"I would do it again. Absolutely. The HUD scoring system is skewed toward the big guys, and we in the Mahoning Valley need to work together to compete. This application was a learning experience for us and we need to learn from our mistakes and do better next time," Keys said Friday.
He said Youngstown Community Development director Bill D'Avignon took the lead on the grant application on behalf of the nine river communities that would benefit from the funds. The communities included Warren, Niles, Girard, McDonald, Newton Falls, Youngstown, Campbell, Struthers and Lowellville.
D'Avignon said he wrote the grant with input from Keys, Trumbull County Planning Commission grants coordinator Julie Green, the Mahoning Valley Organizing Collaborative and officials from the other communities.
He also had help from two interns in his office, including Sarah Sole, a former correspondent for the Tribune Chronicle who is now an editorial assistant at the newspaper. Sole also is the daughter of his girlfriend, Gemma Sole.
Sarah Sole would not comment for this story, referring all questions about her involvement with the grant to D'Avignon.
D'Avignon said Sole worked in his office from June through September 2009 after she graduated from Youngstown State University with a journalism degree. He said she researched census information, unemployment statistics, foreclosure rates and other information on the nine communities, and also proofread the grant for spelling and grammatical errors.
"She did what any other intern would do. I wrote the grant. But I had a lot of help to do so," D'Avignon said.
He said it was decided during a mayor's association meeting that Youngstown would take the lead on the grant because it was the largest community and had experience working with the Housing and Urban Development agency.
"We knew we were asking for a lot of money and we knew we would have to show we could spend it," D'Avignon said.
He said he is being unfairly criticized for the grant's rejection last week by HUD, noting the draft proposal was available on Youngstown's Web site for a 15-day comment period prior to its submission. He said no one commented on it, and the application could have been altered before final submission.
Youngstown City Councilman DeMaine Kitchen, who was among Valley representatives who met Wednesday with HUD officials in Washington, D.C., said in published reports that D'Avignon should be disciplined for the application's failure. Kitchen did not immediately return a message left Friday.
Also at the HUD meeting was U.S. Rep. Timothy Ryan of Niles. E-mail messages sent to Ryan and his communications director, Heather McMahon, were not immediately returned Friday.
D'Avignon said HUD scored the application deficient in several areas, including management structure and past accomplishments. He said he took it for granted that because Youngstown is an entitlement community that receives HUD funding every year, officials at the federal agency were familiar with Youngs-town and he did not think it was necessary to include some of the information the application sought.
"I didn't realize that if the information was not on the application, it does not exist as far as HUD is concerned," D'Avignon said.
He also said competition for the grant was huge, with only 79 applications getting approved out of 482 received.
Keys also defended D'Avignon.
"The big guys that get the funding spend lots of money to hire expensive grant writers. Youngs-town and Warren have to make due with what we have. I am not ashamed of our effort," Keys said.