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NILES -- The Ralph A. Infante Wellness Center will be no more, if council follows through on a request from the mayor to rename the center.
Mayor Tom Scarnecchia, who was a council member when he proposed legislation to name the center after then-mayor Ralph Infante, formally asked council March 15 to sponsor and pass an ordinance stripping the center of the former mayor's name and calling it the Niles Wellness Center.
The Sharkey Drive facility built in 2007 has been spending more revenue than it brings in and council had sought bids from persons interested in leasing the center, but there were no takers.
Scarnecchia said there is some renewed interest from people in starting revenue-generating programs in the building, but the interested parties do not want to operate in a building under the former mayor's name. Because the deals are incomplete, Scarnecchia declined to provide more details about the new programs.
Infante, who led Niles from 1992 to 2015, is facing 56 charges in Trumbull County Common Pleas Court. Infante, 61, is accused in an indictment of using his position as mayor to steal while in office, accept bribes for jobs, waive of tens of thousands in building fees and commit ethics violations. He pleaded not guilty in December to the charges, which carry a potential sentence of more than 100 years behind bars if he is found guilty. He appeared Monday at a pretrial hearing, and new a trial date was rescheduled from April 24 and set for Aug. 14.
Council as a whole agreed to sponsor the legislation and interim Law Director Terry Swauger said he would draw up the legislation for the next council meeting.
Councilman Stephen Papalas, D-at large, said any action that will help generate more revenue at the center -- which spent about $150,000 more than it generated in 2016 -- is a good thing.
Council also voted to table legislation that would have allowed the service director to enter into a maintenance contract for two of the city's water tanks.
Revenue in the water department is coming in lower than projections made in 2016, when the city increased water rates to help close a deficit in the water fund, City Auditor Giovanne Merlo said.
Merlo said he recommended council table the contract, which would initially cost around $192,000 for one tower and $143,000 for another. While the maintenance programs will save money in the long run, the uncertainty in the fund gave Merlo pause, he said.
After seeing how much the city brought in for revenue in January and February, Merlo said projections for water fund revenue sunk from $7.3 million to $6.5 million for 2017.
And, projected expenditures for the bill from the Mahoning Valley Sanitary District, where the city buys its water, went up from $4.2 million to $4.7 million, Merlo said.
The water fund is operating with a deficit, which is one of the reasons the city was placed in fiscal emergency in 2014. Merlo said the fund may still close that deficit in 2018 because capital expenditures are being put on hold.
"If we can stick to that, we should still be OK," Merlo said.