WARREN — Trumbull County commissioners are expected to approve providing the second half of a $1 million grant to the Valley Vision 2050 program.

The county voted to approve the initial $500,000 by a 2-1 vote in December 2023, with Commissioner Denny Malloy and former Commissioner Mauro Cantalamessa voting to provide the funding. Former Commissioner Niki Frenchko voted against providing the funds.

Frenchko, at the time, expressed concerns about the plan because several of the organizations under the Valley Vision 2050 umbrella — Eastgate Regional Council of Governments, Valley Partners, Western Reserve Port Authority, Youngstown Foundation and the Youngstown / Warren Regional Chamber — already have contracts to provide services for Trumbull County.

She also argued some of the money being provided to it could have been used to establish a capital improvement budget or plan within the county.

Mahoning County commissioners provided Valley Vision 2050 its full $1 million request.

Sarah Lown of the Western Reserve Port Authority on Tuesday described Valley Vision 2050 as providing a variety of services, including planning and infrastructure to improve the quality of life in a multiple county region.

“The regional chamber is working on talent development,” she said. “And they are also through the center of nonprofit leadership building our arts and culture ecosystem.”

“We have Lake to River, which is bringing in the big companies,” Lown continued.

Mike McGiffin, vice president of engagement and investor relations with Lake to River Ohio, said Trumbull County and the Lake to River region is now positioned better for economic growth than it has been in the past 50 years.

“Your initial investment in Valley Vision helped the Lake To River economic development organization get started,” McGiffin said. “It helped convince Gov. (Mike) DeWine and Jobs Ohio to create a separated Lake to River economic development region, so our four counties of Ashtabula, Trumbull, Mahoning and Columbiana could work in partnership to secure a future of economic growth.”

“Specifically in Trumbull County, we have 44 properties we are actively advertising and looking to attract industrial users,” he continued.

There are five projects in Trumbull County being developed that will have $350 million in capital investment and provide more than 330 new jobs.

New Commissioner Tony Bernard questioned how close they are to getting the projects started.

“One will be announced very, very soon,” McGiffin said. “The next we have about two months left on and that’s a big one. The other three will take a while. We will get two answers very, very soon.”

Brenda Linert, director of community impact of the Youngstown / Warren Regional Chamber, described the Valley Vision Funds as helpful in the chamber’s efforts to expand the level of talent available for new jobs coming into the area.

“We are focusing heavily on that effort,” Linert said. “We have partnered with Goodwill Industries. We are working to raise the workforce participation rate. In our Valley, the workforce participation rate is about 57%, while statewide and the nation the worker participation rates are about 63%. We are lacking people that we believe could be in the workforce, but currently are not. That’s largely because of barriers that exist and Goodwill Industries and the chamber are now partnering to overcome some of those barriers,” she said.

JoAnn Stock, executive director of Leadership Mahoning Valley, said they are working on increasing public awareness of the arts and culture industry.

“We are working on a lot of research and planning,” she said. “We are working to bring more state and federal dollars. We’ve been working with individual organizations in consulting services to help them do a better job and increase their sustainability.”

Stock described her organization as working to make sure people know what is occurring in the Mahoning Valley.

Jim Kinnick, executive director of the Eastgate Council of Governments, said the partnerships that are occurring regionally — including Eastgate, the chamber, port authority, land banks and the commissioners — is the first time he has seen something like this.

“We recognize that employers and people around here say we have to have houses,” he said.

“We did a study and assessed all of the housing that we have available in Mahoning and Trumbull counties.”

Eastgate, working with a consultant agency, developed a strategy to achieve the housing needs.

“The strategy will be revealed at 9:30 a.m. Jan. 16, a Thursday, at the Public Library in Youngstown,” he said. “It will interact with hot spots for building and infill hot spots. The main strategy will focus on the four buckets underneath housing.

“One is land assembly,” Kinnick said. “Second is small developer training, so we will have more developers building houses. The third is zoning and permitting, so we can have communities working together, and the last focuses on tax abatement.”

Valley Vision allowed Eastgate to extend its work to reach out to employers to find out what their employees need to move into this area, he said.

Kinnick said they are looking at area parks because of the need to look at quality of life issues in the Mahoning Valley in order to attract people to move here.

“We looked at 194 parks in the area,” he said. “There are 74 parks in Trumbull County. We did assessments of their needs and what they have. We want to prioritize what is needed.”

Theresa Miller, executive director of Valley Partners, said her organization helps companies get loans.

“We created a grant program to help people start a business,” she said. “A six-week course teaches them how to start a business plan.”

In 2024, Valley Partners met with 248 new clients, helped to create more than 100 business plans and provided 508 counseling hours.

“The capital these clients were able to obtain was more than $3 million,” Miller said.

Commission President Rick Hernandez , who was not on the board when commissioners voted to approve one half of the million dollars requested, was enthusiastic about the work. He indicated he could support providing the second $500,000 needed by Valley Vision 2050.

“I’m sure you’ve done more than what the board envisioned,” he said. “This is a great program. We do have much growth we are looking forward to.”

Malloy said because it was a new untested program, he thought it was best to wait before providing the full $1 million.

“They exceeded the expectation,” he said. “All we have to be is smart enough to say yes to follow their lead.”