Latest / Ron Verb / The Ron Verb Show - 4pm Hour - #w, 07/14/26

Transcript

The Ron Verb Show - 4pm Hour - #w, 07/14/26 · Ron Verb

• 0:00
  Speaker 1: Now, Ron Verb on NewsRadio 570 WKBN.
• 0:06
  Speaker 2: Back to it, NewsRadio 570 WKBN, 4.07 in the afternoon,
• 0:11
  Speaker 2: and we are with 91 degrees. If you missed the
• 0:14
  Speaker 2: first hour of this program, you'll have to pick it
• 0:17
  Speaker 2: up on our podcast because it is just eye-opening. So
• 0:23
  Speaker 2: before I put Bob Mastriana back on, the architect of
• 0:28
  Speaker 2: the Poland Library The library that was built on bedrock,
• 0:33
  Speaker 2: just so I know people, the Poland Library is not sinking.
• 0:37
  Speaker 2: It's built on bedrock. The part in the back where
• 0:41
  Speaker 2: it was raised up an inch or two was raised
• 0:44
  Speaker 2: up because of Yellow Creek, and they put a wall in,
• 0:48
  Speaker 2: without asking you, that created hydrostatic pressure on a little
• 0:53
  Speaker 2: back section of it that raised the floor up a
• 0:56
  Speaker 2: little bit. As a result of it, that problem can
• 0:59
  Speaker 2: be fixed by fixing that wall that was diverting Yellow Creek.
• 1:03
  Speaker 2: It's an easy problem to fix, as opposed to saying,
• 1:06
  Speaker 2: we've got to abandon this building, it's unsafe, and the
• 1:09
  Speaker 2: library's got to go. That's just BS, right?
• 1:11
  Speaker 3: Right.
• 1:13
  Speaker 2: And then you learned about all of the private money
• 1:17
  Speaker 2: that was donated by families to put things into this
• 1:21
  Speaker 2: library that has been ripped out or taken away. That's
• 1:26
  Speaker 2: supposed to be there forever. That's why people donate to it.
• 1:29
  Speaker 2: The legacy.
• 1:30
  Speaker 4: They changed the donation guidelines for the library in 2003.
• 1:35
  Speaker 4: But all this money was donated before that in 2000.
• 1:40
  Speaker 4: From 1999 to 2001, all this money was donated. And
• 1:46
  Speaker 4: yet they're saying that the library has no longer any
• 1:51
  Speaker 4: responsibility for anything that's donated. and they can dispose of
• 1:56
  Speaker 4: it or do what they want with it. Yet, if
• 1:57
  Speaker 4: we knew that before when we donated, and we..
• 2:01
  Speaker 2: That's ridiculous.
• 2:03
  Speaker 5: Yes, it is.
• 2:04
  Speaker 4: And it is. And especially when you read the literature
• 2:08
  Speaker 4: from the library asking for donations, everything that was donated
• 2:12
  Speaker 4: was supposed to be for a legacy donation for your family,
• 2:17
  Speaker 4: and it was supposed to be permanent, a permanent display.
• 2:21
  Speaker 4: And then And if people knew that it wasn't going
• 2:25
  Speaker 4: to be, they would have never donated the money.
• 2:26
  Speaker 2: Correct. Right.
• 2:28
  Speaker 4: And then one of the other things that was really
• 2:30
  Speaker 4: a flagrant violation was the Mahoney County Sanitary Recycling District.
• 2:37
  Speaker 4: And it was done with Mike Hayhar, who was the
• 2:40
  Speaker 4: liaison for the community. He said, Bob, if you can
• 2:43
  Speaker 4: use recycled products, and this was way back when recycling
• 2:48
  Speaker 4: wasn't even We were the very first in the area
• 2:51
  Speaker 4: to even have recycled products. But he suggested, if you
• 2:54
  Speaker 4: can use recycled products, I think we can get you
• 2:57
  Speaker 4: a substantial grant from the Solid Waste District. And so
• 3:02
  Speaker 4: they went ahead and gave us a matching grant of
• 3:07
  Speaker 4: $ 400, 000 if we used recycled products. And so we did.
• 3:14
  Speaker 4: And so they were supposed to have a permanent display, though.
• 3:17
  Speaker 4: That was part of the contract. permanent display of all
• 3:19
  Speaker 4: the recycled products that were in the building and so
• 3:21
  Speaker 4: they had done a beautiful display it was there all
• 3:24
  Speaker 4: this time and then during their refresh uh they tore
• 3:28
  Speaker 4: it down and took it out and that was not
• 3:30
  Speaker 4: part of the deal for the 400 they should really
• 3:32
  Speaker 4: um sue.
• 3:33
  Speaker 2: Them jesus they got rid of the wingback chairs they
• 3:35
  Speaker 2: got rid of what are those other chairs.
• 3:36
  Speaker 4: Kippendale sofas okay and then the chair and yeah the
• 3:40
  Speaker 4: only thing they kept were the uh were the uh
• 3:42
  Speaker 4: Tiger Maple Tavern Tables.
• 3:45
  Speaker 2: So they got rid of all of the good furniture.
• 3:47
  Speaker 2: All of the stuff, the donated stuff, a lot of
• 3:50
  Speaker 2: it was gone, the legacy stuff.
• 3:51
  Speaker 5: Right.
• 3:52
  Speaker 2: Did they get rid of the Ron Verbrum? Is that gone?
• 3:54
  Speaker 4: You know, I think it is.
• 3:58
  Speaker 2: Because I know there were two urinals in there with
• 4:01
  Speaker 2: my name on them. But, okay, so this was all
• 4:06
  Speaker 2: going on. Square footage-wise, how big is the Poland Library?
• 4:10
  Speaker 4: 35,650. 10 square feet.
• 4:14
  Speaker 2: 35,000 something. And when it was built, roughly how much
• 4:18
  Speaker 2: a square foot?
• 4:19
  Speaker 4: It was 185 a square foot, including furnishings. Furnishings came to.
• 4:24
  Speaker 2: Think of that. A house today is 200 bucks a
• 4:27
  Speaker 2: square foot.
• 4:27
  Speaker 4: No, it's 300 now.
• 4:28
  Speaker 2: Can you.
• 4:30
  Speaker 4: Imagine?
• 4:31
  Speaker 2: Okay. So you're at- So think of what you just said.
• 4:37
  Speaker 2: So 35,000-ish square foot, under 200 a square foot. The
• 4:43
  Speaker 2: new library, how big are they saying that's going to be?
• 4:45
  Speaker 4: 16,000 square feet.
• 4:47
  Speaker 2: Half the size.
• 4:48
  Speaker 4: Yeah, and twice the cost. It was going to be
• 4:50
  Speaker 4: around 400 square foot.
• 4:53
  Speaker 2: And it's not going to be spectacular like this. No,
• 4:55
  Speaker 2: that was just a.
• 4:56
  Speaker 4: Middle price per square foot, they said. And I analyzed
• 4:59
  Speaker 4: their whole cost analysis just to make sure what they
• 5:02
  Speaker 4: were quoting to the public was accurate. And I averaged
• 5:06
  Speaker 4: all the price. libraries that they had in their book
• 5:10
  Speaker 4: that they used to justify to the board and things
• 5:12
  Speaker 4: like this. And there was a lot of things that
• 5:14
  Speaker 4: they didn't have included. And so I know that that building,
• 5:19
  Speaker 4: based on my experience in that, is going to be
• 5:21
  Speaker 4: well over $ 9. 5 million. To build?
• 5:25
  Speaker 2: To build. And what did it cost to build the
• 5:27
  Speaker 2: Poland Library?
• 5:27
  Speaker 4: $ 7 million.
• 5:30
  Speaker 2: So it's going to cost more, be half the size,
• 5:35
  Speaker 2: and not as spectacular. Right. How much do you guess
• 5:38
  Speaker 2: it would cost Ballpark to fix the problem at.
• 5:41
  Speaker 4: The Pullman Library? I would think … At the most. … creative,
• 5:45
  Speaker 4: good … I think it could be done for $ 5 million,
• 5:48
  Speaker 4: $ 6 at the tops.
• 5:49
  Speaker 3: Right.
• 5:50
  Speaker 2: But they're… Totally fixed. Yeah. Think of that. You want
• 5:55
  Speaker 2: to take some calls? Maybe. You have the same attitude
• 6:00
  Speaker 2: I have when I sit down here at 3 o'clock
• 6:02
  Speaker 2: every day.
• 6:02
  Speaker 4: Yeah, because you don't know what you're going to be
• 6:03
  Speaker 4: hit with.
• 6:04
  Speaker 2: When I sit down here and I say, should I
• 6:06
  Speaker 2: take calls? My attitude is the same every day. Maybe,
• 6:10
  Speaker 2: maybe not.
• 6:11
  Speaker 4: Let's have the first one, and then we'll see whether
• 6:13
  Speaker 4: we take another one.
• 6:14
  Speaker 2: Well, let's be courageous. News Radio 570 WKVN, Ron Burp.
• 6:19
  Speaker 2: You're on the air with Bob Mastriana. Hello.
• 6:21
  Speaker 3: Hello.
• 6:22
  Speaker 6: I'm so happy you have Bob on the.
• 6:25
  Speaker 5: Radio show today.
• 6:26
  Speaker 2: Is this eye-opening or what? I mean, seriously. This is eye-opening.
• 6:33
  Speaker 2: I mean, I want the public to know this. What's
• 6:36
  Speaker 2: going on? I've never voted to fire a library levy,
• 6:40
  Speaker 2: and I never will. The public is being ignored. This
• 6:44
  Speaker 2: is out of control. But go ahead with your comments.
• 6:47
  Speaker 6: Well, what started me off on the library was the
• 6:51
  Speaker 6: refresh thing. I almost had a stroke when I walked
• 6:54
  Speaker 6: in and I saw that that magnificent building now looked
• 6:58
  Speaker 6: like I was in an Ikea store. And I thought,
• 7:00
  Speaker 6: how terrible. So maybe you should talk to your guests.
• 7:05
  Speaker 6: Why in the world did this happen? I cannot understand
• 7:08
  Speaker 6: how a board of directors of intelligent people would vote
• 7:12
  Speaker 6: to do this. Why in the world would you do that?
• 7:15
  Speaker 6: And I guess that would be my question, if you
• 7:17
  Speaker 6: and Bob could talk about that more. Why would they
• 7:21
  Speaker 6: think that it's not a good idea to have a
• 7:22
  Speaker 6: walkable neighborhood? Why would you not think that's something positive?
• 7:27
  Speaker 6: And they're self-appointed, so they operate, obviously, in an echo chamber.
• 7:32
  Speaker 6: They never have to face the voters. So whatever they do,
• 7:35
  Speaker 6: nobody really cares because there's nothing they can do about it.
• 7:39
  Speaker 6: So that would be my comment. Maybe you could get
• 7:41
  Speaker 6: the rest of your callers to talk about why in
• 7:44
  Speaker 6: the world would this board of directors decide to do this.
• 7:48
  Speaker 2: All right. Thank you. Comments?
• 7:51
  Speaker 4: Well, that's the million-dollar question.
• 7:55
  Speaker 2: There is an explanation for it. It doesn't make sense.
• 7:57
  Speaker 5: Right.
• 7:57
  Speaker 4: There's no logic. The thing that I want to emphasize
• 8:00
  Speaker 4: is they're doing the same refresh to the Austintown Library,
• 8:05
  Speaker 4: and they've already done it to the East Library, which
• 8:08
  Speaker 4: is very strange because they're all three of our libraries.
• 8:13
  Speaker 4: And the thing that's interesting is I've done hundreds of buildings,
• 8:17
  Speaker 4: and we've had not one issue with all of them,
• 8:21
  Speaker 4: all these years for my whole career, and yet the
• 8:23
  Speaker 4: three buildings that I did for the libraries, and they're
• 8:27
  Speaker 4: all different styles of architecture, they're different sizes, they're totally
• 8:30
  Speaker 4: different from each other, and yet they have one common
• 8:34
  Speaker 4: element that's very odd, and that has to do with
• 8:38
  Speaker 4: the same issue of lack of maintenance. So no matter
• 8:41
  Speaker 4: what style of architecture or details, whether it's historic, traditional, contemporary,
• 8:47
  Speaker 4: they all, under the tutelage of this board and that
• 8:51
  Speaker 4: all create the same problems due to lack of maintenance.
• 8:54
  Speaker 2: And a building will deteriorate.
• 8:56
  Speaker 4: Yes.
• 8:57
  Speaker 2: Anybody's home will deteriorate if you don't do maintenance on it.
• 9:00
  Speaker 7: Right.
• 9:00
  Speaker 4: So even though this is focused on Poland, it's really
• 9:04
  Speaker 4: coming to a library in your community also.
• 9:07
  Speaker 2: I would equate it. Watch this, Mr. Architect. You're going
• 9:10
  Speaker 2: to be impressed by this. If you have a mulch
• 9:13
  Speaker 2: bed of flowers and you don't weed it on a
• 9:15
  Speaker 2: regular basis, the weeds will take it over. You have
• 9:19
  Speaker 2: to do maintenance to get the beauty of it. You
• 9:21
  Speaker 2: follow me?
• 9:22
  Speaker 5: Yes.
• 9:22
  Speaker 2: If you're not willing to do it, it'll never happen.
• 9:24
  Speaker 2: If you don't do maintenance on these buildings, the simple things,
• 9:27
  Speaker 2: whether it's a roof, painting, caulking, like you do on
• 9:31
  Speaker 2: a home, it will deteriorate. I'm kind of a shade
• 9:36
  Speaker 2: tree architect. All right. You're on the air with Bob Mastriana. Hello.
• 9:41
  Speaker 5: Hello. I just want to talk about some points. There
• 9:44
  Speaker 5: are a couple of things here besides the architectural problems.
• 9:47
  Speaker 5: One of them is the accountability and the authority for
• 9:50
  Speaker 5: who makes these decisions, and the other is the finances
• 9:54
  Speaker 5: of it. You know, you have 15 people here who
• 9:58
  Speaker 5: have been listening to a couple hundred. people from the
• 10:00
  Speaker 5: polling area saying who paid taxes, who paid really for
• 10:03
  Speaker 5: the library. And these 15 people who are self-appointed and self-elected,
• 10:08
  Speaker 5: they're saying no, and that's the end of it. And
• 10:11
  Speaker 5: that's the way the law is structured. You know, there's
• 10:12
  Speaker 5: a really, people don't understand. I was surprised to see
• 10:16
  Speaker 5: how the structure of the library. It's a non-profit corporation,
• 10:20
  Speaker 5: and it was established to the point where there is
• 10:23
  Speaker 5: absolutely no control. The county commissioners can say nothing about it,
• 10:27
  Speaker 5: and the only person who has any oversight over it,
• 10:30
  Speaker 5: and that is if you have a complaint, you can
• 10:32
  Speaker 5: write to the Attorney General of Ohio. But in the meantime,
• 10:35
  Speaker 5: you know, the village people can't do anything. The county commissioners,
• 10:41
  Speaker 5: even though they went down there, all three of them
• 10:43
  Speaker 5: had asked to keep the library as The answer to
• 10:47
  Speaker 5: them was no, too. Bob mentioned about the cost of personnel.
• 10:52
  Speaker 5: That's the most worrisome thing that I see there. I've
• 10:55
  Speaker 5: been studying the library for a couple of years now
• 10:59
  Speaker 5: because of the levy amount. Ten years ago, back in 2010,
• 11:04
  Speaker 5: they tripled the amount of property tax that Mahoney County
• 11:08
  Speaker 5: property taxpayers were paying. It went from $ 3 million a
• 11:12
  Speaker 5: year to $ 9 million a year because of a couple
• 11:15
  Speaker 5: of levies that were very confusing to the average person.
• 11:19
  Speaker 5: People don't know what they're paying, and they don't know
• 11:21
  Speaker 5: what they're getting for either. They were saying that they
• 11:25
  Speaker 5: can't fix this. They don't want to keep this Poland Library,
• 11:28
  Speaker 5: not just because of what it costs to fix it,
• 11:31
  Speaker 5: but because they say they can't maintain it for the next,
• 11:33
  Speaker 5: I think they used a figure of 30 years. Well,
• 11:37
  Speaker 5: if they took a look at what they're doing and
• 11:40
  Speaker 5: quit doing some of the things that they're doing that
• 11:44
  Speaker 5: are not at all related to to literacy and education,
• 11:48
  Speaker 5: which is the mission of a library, then they would
• 11:51
  Speaker 5: have the money to do that. Bob did mention correctly
• 11:55
  Speaker 5: the Mahoney County library costs for personnel, salaries, and benefits
• 12:03
  Speaker 5: went from roughly half of their income to three-quarters of
• 12:09
  Speaker 5: their income. Now, you can't keep that up very long.
• 12:12
  Speaker 5: The next thing you're going to be saying, they don't
• 12:13
  Speaker 5: have the money to do anything. besides paper. There needs
• 12:17
  Speaker 5: to be some explanation of why you increased your personnel
• 12:21
  Speaker 5: costs by that much money in just three or four years.
• 12:26
  Speaker 5: And then whatever that was, they need to make some
• 12:30
  Speaker 5: kind of correction to it. But there needs some change
• 12:32
  Speaker 5: in authority. All this $ 100 million a year that comes
• 12:35
  Speaker 5: every five years, the taxpayer has no control over whatsoever.
• 12:40
  Speaker 5: And half of that is, like Bob said, from the county.
• 12:43
  Speaker 5: and half from the state. The state of Ohio pays
• 12:46
  Speaker 5: the highest amount of money for public libraries of any
• 12:49
  Speaker 5: state in the United States of America.
• 12:51
  Speaker 2: Let me just correct one thing you said. All of
• 12:54
  Speaker 2: that money is your taxpayer money. I don't care where
• 12:57
  Speaker 2: it comes from. It is your money. But the personnel
• 13:00
  Speaker 2: costs from 50% to 75%. So let's hire more people
• 13:04
  Speaker 2: and then we won't have any money to maintain anything.
• 13:08
  Speaker 2: But did you hear what he said? 26 years and
• 13:10
  Speaker 2: you haven't done maintenance on the building.
• 13:13
  Speaker 5: I heard that. That's true. Well, you know, there's nobody,
• 13:18
  Speaker 5: you know, who's making these decisions. I haven't heard the
• 13:22
  Speaker 5: trustees talking about this. You hear the CEO talking about it,
• 13:26
  Speaker 5: not the trustees. And there needs to be a change.
• 13:30
  Speaker 5: There has to be a change to the authority. You're
• 13:32
  Speaker 5: giving this organization $ 100 million of taxpayer money every five years.
• 13:37
  Speaker 5: And they have nothing to say about it. And that's
• 13:40
  Speaker 5: not a good thing.
• 13:41
  Speaker 2: Would you not agree that they've crapped on the Poland community?
• 13:45
  Speaker 2: Yes or no?
• 13:46
  Speaker 3: Right. Totally.
• 13:47
  Speaker 5: And there's been some implication that Poland wants to be
• 13:51
  Speaker 5: treated special. More money is spent in Youngstown per capita
• 13:55
  Speaker 5: on libraries than spent anywhere else in the county. Boardman
• 13:59
  Speaker 5: and Austintown together have more population. than Youngstown, and they
• 14:02
  Speaker 5: have two libraries. Youngstown has five, including the main library downtown,
• 14:08
  Speaker 5: one which they spent $ 27 million for things that are
• 14:11
  Speaker 5: not at all related.
• 14:12
  Speaker 2: Did you happen to hear what he said, Tom, about
• 14:14
  Speaker 2: the $ 27 million that they spent downtown and how they
• 14:18
  Speaker 2: took the architecture of that and destroyed it? Right.
• 14:22
  Speaker 5: I heard him talk about that, yes. I was in
• 14:25
  Speaker 5: that building one time for the meeting where they decided
• 14:27
  Speaker 5: to get rid of the Poland Library, and all it
• 14:30
  Speaker 5: was was a big meeting room. You know, the director,
• 14:34
  Speaker 5: the CEO of the library once said that they didn't
• 14:37
  Speaker 5: have any political people making decisions about who would be
• 14:40
  Speaker 5: on the board to avoid having politics in it. Well,
• 14:44
  Speaker 5: my God, I think we need politics in it, you know,
• 14:48
  Speaker 5: to somebody who's accountable to the taxpayer so that they can,
• 14:53
  Speaker 5: when three or four hundred people complain about something, that
• 14:56
  Speaker 5: they'll be listened to and have some action taken on
• 14:59
  Speaker 5: their behalf.
• 15:00
  Speaker 3: So..
• 15:02
  Speaker 5: They need to take a look at how they're spending money.
• 15:05
  Speaker 5: There should be a performance audit done of the whole
• 15:07
  Speaker 5: library system by the state auditor, and there needs to
• 15:11
  Speaker 5: be a change in the legal structure of the authority
• 15:14
  Speaker 5: of the library board of trustees to where that board
• 15:18
  Speaker 5: is accountable.
• 15:19
  Speaker 2: Just hang on one second. I'll come back to you
• 15:24
  Speaker 2: right after this. stop in the sapphire essentials in 1975
• 15:32
  Speaker 2: east news radio 570 wkb and 407 in the afternoon
• 15:38
  Speaker 2: and we are with 91 degrees if you miss the
• 15:41
  Speaker 2: first hour of this program you'll have to pick it
• 15:44
  Speaker 2: up on our podcast because it is just eye-opening so
• 15:50
  Speaker 2: before i put bob mastriana back on the uh the
• 15:55
  Speaker 2: architect of the poland library The library that was built
• 16:00
  Speaker 2: on bedrock, just so I know people, the Poland Library
• 16:03
  Speaker 2: is not sinking. It's built on bedrock. The part in
• 16:07
  Speaker 2: the back where it was raised up an inch or
• 16:10
  Speaker 2: two was raised up because of Yellow Creek, and they
• 16:15
  Speaker 2: put a wall in, without asking you, that created hydrostatic
• 16:19
  Speaker 2: pressure on a little back section of it that raised
• 16:23
  Speaker 2: the floor up a little bit. As a result of it,
• 16:26
  Speaker 2: that problem can be fixed by fixing that wall that
• 16:29
  Speaker 2: was diverting Yellow Creek. It's an easy problem to fix
• 16:33
  Speaker 2: as opposed to saying we've got to abandon this building.
• 16:35
  Speaker 2: It's unsafe and the library's got to go. That's just BS, right? Right.
• 16:40
  Speaker 2: And then you learned about all of the private money
• 16:45
  Speaker 2: that was donated by families to put things into this
• 16:49
  Speaker 2: library that has been ripped out or taken away. That's
• 16:54
  Speaker 2: supposed to be there forever. That's why people donate to it.
• 16:57
  Speaker 2: The legacy.
• 16:58
  Speaker 4: They changed the donation guidelines for the library in 2003.
• 17:03
  Speaker 4: But all this money was donated before that in 2000.
• 17:08
  Speaker 4: From 1999 to 2001, all this money was donated. And
• 17:14
  Speaker 4: yet they're saying that the library has no longer any
• 17:19
  Speaker 4: responsibility for anything that's donated anymore. and they can dispose
• 17:23
  Speaker 4: of it or do what they want with it. Yet,
• 17:25
  Speaker 4: if we knew that before when we donated.
• 17:28
  Speaker 5: And we..
• 17:28
  Speaker 2: That's ridiculous. Yes, it is.
• 17:31
  Speaker 8: And it is.
• 17:32
  Speaker 4: And especially when you read the literature from the library
• 17:36
  Speaker 4: asking for donations, everything that was donated was supposed to
• 17:41
  Speaker 4: be for a legacy donation for your family, and it
• 17:45
  Speaker 4: was supposed to be permanent, a permanent display. And then,
• 17:50
  Speaker 4: And if people knew that it wasn't going to be,
• 17:53
  Speaker 4: they would have never donated the money.
• 17:54
  Speaker 2: Correct. Right.
• 17:55
  Speaker 4: And then one of the other things that was really
• 17:57
  Speaker 4: a flagrant violation was the Mahoney County Sanitary Recycling District.
• 18:05
  Speaker 4: And it was done with Mike Hayhar, who was the
• 18:08
  Speaker 4: liaison for the community. He said, Bob, if you can
• 18:11
  Speaker 4: use recycled products, and this was way back when recycling
• 18:16
  Speaker 4: wasn't even We were the very first in the area
• 18:19
  Speaker 4: to even have recycled products. But he suggested, if you
• 18:22
  Speaker 4: can use recycled products, I think we can get you
• 18:24
  Speaker 4: a substantial grant from the Solid Waste District. And so
• 18:30
  Speaker 4: they went ahead and gave us a matching grant of
• 18:34
  Speaker 4: $ 400, 000 if we used recycled products. And so we did.
• 18:42
  Speaker 4: And so they were supposed to have a permanent display, though.
• 18:44
  Speaker 4: That was part of the contract. permanent display of all
• 18:47
  Speaker 4: the recycled products that were in the building and so
• 18:49
  Speaker 4: they had done a beautiful display was there all this
• 18:52
  Speaker 4: time and then during their refresh uh they tore it
• 18:56
  Speaker 4: down and took it out and that was not part
• 18:58
  Speaker 4: of the deal for the 400 they should really um sue.
• 19:01
  Speaker 2: Them jesus they got rid of the wingback chairs they
• 19:03
  Speaker 2: got rid of what are those other chairs okay and
• 19:06
  Speaker 2: then the chair.
• 19:07
  Speaker 4: And yeah the only thing they kept were the uh
• 19:09
  Speaker 4: were the uh tiger maple uh tavern tables.
• 19:12
  Speaker 2: So they got rid of all of the good furniture.
• 19:15
  Speaker 2: All of the stuff, the donated stuff, a lot of
• 19:17
  Speaker 2: it was gone, the legacy stuff.
• 19:19
  Speaker 5: Right.
• 19:20
  Speaker 2: Did they get rid of the Ron Verbrum? Is that gone?
• 19:22
  Speaker 4: You know, I think it is.
• 19:26
  Speaker 2: Because I know there were two urinals in there with
• 19:29
  Speaker 2: my name on them. But, okay, so this was all
• 19:34
  Speaker 2: going on. Square footage-wise, how big is the Poland Library?
• 19:37
  Speaker 4: 35,600. 10 square feet.
• 19:42
  Speaker 2: 35,000 something. And when it was built, roughly how much
• 19:45
  Speaker 2: a square foot?
• 19:46
  Speaker 4: It was 185 a square foot, including furnishings. Furnishings came to..
• 19:52
  Speaker 2: Think of that. A house today is 200 bucks a
• 19:54
  Speaker 2: square foot.
• 19:55
  Speaker 4: No, it's 300 now.
• 19:57
  Speaker 2: Just imagine.
• 19:58
  Speaker 7: Okay.
• 19:58
  Speaker 2: So you're at... So think of what you just said.
• 20:01
  Speaker 2: So 35,000-ish square foot... Under 200 a square foot. The
• 20:11
  Speaker 2: new library, how big are they saying that's going to be?
• 20:13
  Speaker 4: 16,000 square feet.
• 20:15
  Speaker 2: Half the size.
• 20:16
  Speaker 4: Yeah, and twice the cost. It was going to be
• 20:18
  Speaker 4: around 400 a square foot.
• 20:20
  Speaker 2: And it's not going to be spectacular like this.
• 20:22
  Speaker 4: No, that was just a middle price per square foot,
• 20:24
  Speaker 4: they said. And I analyzed their whole cost analysis just
• 20:29
  Speaker 4: to make sure what they were quoting to the public
• 20:31
  Speaker 4: was accurate and accurate. And I averaged all the libraries
• 20:36
  Speaker 4: that they had in their book that they used to
• 20:38
  Speaker 4: justify to the board and things like this. And there
• 20:41
  Speaker 4: was a lot of things that they didn't have included.
• 20:44
  Speaker 4: And so I know that that building, based on my
• 20:47
  Speaker 4: experience in that, is going to be well over $ 9. 5 million.
• 20:51
  Speaker 2: To build? To build. And what did it cost to
• 20:54
  Speaker 2: build the Poland Library?
• 20:55
  Speaker 4: $ 7 million.
• 20:58
  Speaker 2: So it costs more, be half the size, and not
• 21:03
  Speaker 2: as spectacular.
• 21:04
  Speaker 9: Right.
• 21:05
  Speaker 2: How much would you guess it would cost Ballpark to
• 21:07
  Speaker 2: fix the problem?
• 21:09
  Speaker 4: I would think..
• 21:11
  Speaker 2: At the most.
• 21:12
  Speaker 4: I think it could be done for $ 5 million, $ 6
• 21:15
  Speaker 4: million at the tops.
• 21:17
  Speaker 2: Right. Totally fixed.
• 21:20
  Speaker 5: Yeah.
• 21:22
  Speaker 2: Think of that. You want to take some calls?
• 21:25
  Speaker 3: Maybe.
• 21:27
  Speaker 2: You have the same attitude I have when I sit
• 21:29
  Speaker 2: down here at 3 o'clock every day. You don't know
• 21:30
  Speaker 2: what you're going to be hit with. When I sit
• 21:32
  Speaker 2: down here and I say, should I take calls? My
• 21:35
  Speaker 2: attitude is the same every day. Maybe, maybe, maybe not.
• 21:39
  Speaker 4: Let's have the first one, and then we'll see whether
• 21:41
  Speaker 4: we take another one.
• 21:42
  Speaker 2: Well, let's be courageous. NewsRadio 570 WKVN, Ron Burp. You're
• 21:47
  Speaker 2: on the air with Bob Mastriana. Hello.
• 21:48
  Speaker 3: Hello.
• 21:50
  Speaker 6: I'm so happy you have Bob on the radio show today.
• 21:54
  Speaker 2: Is this eye-opening or what? I mean, seriously. This is eye-opening.
• 22:01
  Speaker 2: I mean, I want the public to know this. What's
• 22:04
  Speaker 2: going on? I've never voted to fire a library levy,
• 22:07
  Speaker 2: and I never will. The public is being ignored. This
• 22:11
  Speaker 2: is out of control. But go ahead with your comments.
• 22:15
  Speaker 6: Well, what started me off on the library was the
• 22:19
  Speaker 6: refresh thing. I almost had a stroke when I walked
• 22:22
  Speaker 6: in and I saw that that magnificent building now looked
• 22:25
  Speaker 6: like I was in an Ikea store. And I thought,
• 22:28
  Speaker 6: how terrible. So, Ron, maybe you could talk to your guests.
• 22:33
  Speaker 6: Why in the world did this happen? I cannot understand
• 22:36
  Speaker 6: how a board of directors of intelligent people would vote
• 22:39
  Speaker 6: to do this. Why in the world would you do that?
• 22:43
  Speaker 6: And I guess that would be my question, if you
• 22:45
  Speaker 6: and Bob could talk about that more. Why would they
• 22:48
  Speaker 6: think that it's not a good idea to have a
• 22:50
  Speaker 6: walkable neighborhood? Why would you not think that's something positive?
• 22:55
  Speaker 6: And they're self-appointed, so they operate, obviously, in an echo chamber.
• 22:59
  Speaker 6: They never have to face the voters. So whatever they do,
• 23:03
  Speaker 6: nobody really cares because there's nothing they can.
• 23:05
  Speaker 7: Do about it.
• 23:06
  Speaker 6: So that would be my comment. Maybe you could get
• 23:09
  Speaker 6: the rest of your callers to talk about why in
• 23:11
  Speaker 6: the world would this board of directors decide to do this?
• 23:16
  Speaker 2: All right. Thank you. Comments?
• 23:19
  Speaker 4: Well, that's the million-dollar question.
• 23:22
  Speaker 2: There is an explanation for it. It doesn't make sense. Right.
• 23:25
  Speaker 4: There's no logic. The thing that I want to emphasize
• 23:28
  Speaker 4: is they're doing the same refresh to the Austintown Library,
• 23:32
  Speaker 4: and they've already done it to the East Library, which
• 23:36
  Speaker 4: is very strange because they're all three of our libraries.
• 23:41
  Speaker 4: And the thing that's interesting is I've done hundreds of buildings,
• 23:45
  Speaker 4: and we've had not one issue with all of them,
• 23:49
  Speaker 4: all these years for my whole career, and yet the
• 23:51
  Speaker 4: three buildings that I did for the libraries, and they're
• 23:55
  Speaker 4: all different styles of architecture, they're different sizes, they're totally
• 23:58
  Speaker 4: different from each other, and yet they have one common
• 24:01
  Speaker 4: element that's very odd, and that has to do with
• 24:06
  Speaker 4: the same issue of lack of maintenance. So no matter
• 24:09
  Speaker 4: what style of architecture or details, whether it's historic, traditional, contemporary,
• 24:15
  Speaker 4: they all, under the tutelage of this board and that
• 24:19
  Speaker 4: all create the same problems due to lack of maintenance.
• 24:22
  Speaker 2: And a building will deteriorate.
• 24:23
  Speaker 4: Yes.
• 24:25
  Speaker 2: Anybody's home will deteriorate if you don't do maintenance on it.
• 24:27
  Speaker 5: Right.
• 24:28
  Speaker 4: So even though this is focused on Poland, it's really
• 24:32
  Speaker 4: coming to a library in your community also.
• 24:35
  Speaker 2: I would equate it. Watch this, Mr. Architect. You're going
• 24:38
  Speaker 2: to be impressed by this. If you have a mulch
• 24:40
  Speaker 2: bed of flowers and you don't weed it on a
• 24:43
  Speaker 2: regular basis, the weeds will take it over. You have
• 24:46
  Speaker 2: to do maintenance to get the beauty of it. You
• 24:49
  Speaker 2: follow me? Yes. If you're not willing to do it,
• 24:51
  Speaker 2: it'll never happen. If you don't do maintenance on these buildings,
• 24:54
  Speaker 2: the simple things, whether it's a roof, painting, caulking, like
• 24:58
  Speaker 2: you do on a home, it will deteriorate.
• 25:01
  Speaker 3: All right.
• 25:02
  Speaker 2: I mean, you know, I'm kind of a shade tree architect.
• 25:05
  Speaker 2: All right. You're on the air with Bob Mastriano. Hello.
• 25:09
  Speaker 5: Hello. I just want to talk about some points. There
• 25:12
  Speaker 5: are a couple of things here besides the architectural problems.
• 25:15
  Speaker 5: One of them is the accountability and the authority for
• 25:18
  Speaker 5: who makes these decisions, and the other is the finances
• 25:21
  Speaker 5: of it. You know, you have 15 people here who
• 25:26
  Speaker 5: have been listening to a couple hundred people from the
• 25:28
  Speaker 5: polling area saying who paid taxes, who paid really for
• 25:31
  Speaker 5: the library, and these 15 people who are self-appointed and self-elected,
• 25:36
  Speaker 5: they're saying no and that's the end of it. And
• 25:38
  Speaker 5: that's the way the law is structured. You know, there's
• 25:40
  Speaker 5: a really, people don't understand. I was surprised to see
• 25:44
  Speaker 5: how the structure of the library. It's a non-profit corporation,
• 25:48
  Speaker 5: and it was established to the point where there is
• 25:51
  Speaker 5: absolutely no control. The county commissioners can say nothing about it,
• 25:55
  Speaker 5: and the only person who has any oversight over it,
• 25:58
  Speaker 5: and that is if you have a complaint, you can
• 25:59
  Speaker 5: write to the Attorney General of Ohio. But in the meantime,
• 26:03
  Speaker 5: you know that the village people can't do anything. The
• 26:08
  Speaker 5: county commissioners, even though they went down there, all three
• 26:10
  Speaker 5: of them have asked to keep the library as The
• 26:14
  Speaker 5: answer to them was no, too. Bob mentioned about the
• 26:19
  Speaker 5: cost of personnel. That's the most worrisome thing that I
• 26:22
  Speaker 5: see there. I've been studying the library for a couple
• 26:25
  Speaker 5: years now because of the levy amount. Ten years ago,
• 26:30
  Speaker 5: back in 2010, they tripled the amount of property tax
• 26:34
  Speaker 5: that Mahoney County property taxpayers were paying. They went from
• 26:39
  Speaker 5: $ 3 million a year to $ 9 million a year because
• 26:42
  Speaker 5: of a couple... levies that were very confusing to the
• 26:45
  Speaker 5: average person. People don't know what they're paying, and they
• 26:48
  Speaker 5: don't know what they're getting for either. They were saying
• 26:52
  Speaker 5: that they can't fix this. They don't want to keep
• 26:54
  Speaker 5: this Poland Library, not just because of what it costs
• 26:57
  Speaker 5: to fix it, but because they say they can't maintain
• 27:00
  Speaker 5: it for the next, I think they used a figure
• 27:03
  Speaker 5: of 30 years. Well, if they took a look at
• 27:07
  Speaker 5: what they're doing and quit doing some of the things
• 27:10
  Speaker 5: that they're doing that are not at all related to
• 27:13
  Speaker 5: to literacy and education, which is the mission of a library,
• 27:18
  Speaker 5: then they would have the money to do that. Bob
• 27:21
  Speaker 5: did mention correctly the Mahoney County library costs for personnel, salaries,
• 27:29
  Speaker 5: and benefits went from roughly half of their income to
• 27:36
  Speaker 5: three-quarters of their income. You can't keep that up very long.
• 27:40
  Speaker 5: The next thing you're going to be saying, they don't
• 27:41
  Speaker 5: have the money to do anything. besides paper. There needs
• 27:45
  Speaker 5: to be some explanation of why you increased your personnel
• 27:49
  Speaker 5: costs by that much money in just three or four years.
• 27:53
  Speaker 5: And then whatever that was, they need to make some
• 27:58
  Speaker 5: kind of correction to it. But there needs some change
• 28:00
  Speaker 5: in authority. All this $ 100 million a year that comes
• 28:03
  Speaker 5: every five years, the taxpayer has no control over whatsoever.
• 28:08
  Speaker 5: And half of that is, like Bob said, from the county.
• 28:11
  Speaker 5: and half from the state. The state of Ohio pays
• 28:14
  Speaker 5: the highest amount of money for public libraries of any
• 28:17
  Speaker 5: state in the United States of America.
• 28:19
  Speaker 2: Let me just correct one thing you said. All of
• 28:22
  Speaker 2: that money is your taxpayer money. I don't care where
• 28:24
  Speaker 2: it comes from. It is your money. But the personnel
• 28:28
  Speaker 2: costs from 50% to 75%. So let's hire more people
• 28:32
  Speaker 2: and then we won't have any money to maintain anything.
• 28:35
  Speaker 2: But did you hear what he said? 26 years and
• 28:38
  Speaker 2: you haven't done maintenance on the building.
• 28:40
  Speaker 5: Right, I heard that. That's true. Well, you know, there's nobody,
• 28:46
  Speaker 5: you know, who's making these decisions. I haven't heard the
• 28:50
  Speaker 5: trustees talking about this. You hear the CEO talking about it,
• 28:54
  Speaker 5: not the trustees. And there needs to be a change.
• 28:58
  Speaker 5: There has to be a change to the authority. You're
• 29:00
  Speaker 5: giving this organization $ 100 million of taxpayer money every five years.
• 29:05
  Speaker 5: and they have nothing to say about it. And that's
• 29:08
  Speaker 5: not a good thing.
• 29:08
  Speaker 2: Well, would you not agree that they've crapped on the
• 29:12
  Speaker 2: Poland community? Yes or no?
• 29:14
  Speaker 3: Right.
• 29:14
  Speaker 2: I mean, totally.
• 29:15
  Speaker 5: And there's been some implication that Poland wants to be
• 29:18
  Speaker 5: treated special. More money is spent in Youngstown per capita
• 29:23
  Speaker 5: on libraries than spent anywhere else in the county. Boardman
• 29:26
  Speaker 5: and Austintown together have more population than Youngstown, and they
• 29:30
  Speaker 5: have two libraries. Youngstown has five, including... the main library downtown,
• 29:35
  Speaker 5: one which they spent $ 27 million for things that are
• 29:38
  Speaker 5: not at all related.
• 29:39
  Speaker 2: Did you happen to hear what he said, Tom, about
• 29:42
  Speaker 2: the $ 27 million that they spent downtown and how they
• 29:45
  Speaker 2: took the architecture of that and destroyed it?
• 29:47
  Speaker 3: Right.
• 29:50
  Speaker 5: I heard him talk about that, yes. I was in
• 29:52
  Speaker 5: that building one time for the meeting where they decided
• 29:55
  Speaker 5: to get rid of the Poland Library. And all it
• 29:57
  Speaker 5: was was a big meeting room. You know, the director,
• 30:02
  Speaker 5: the CEO of the library once said that they didn't
• 30:05
  Speaker 5: have any political people making decisions about who would be
• 30:08
  Speaker 5: on the board to avoid having politics in it. Well,
• 30:12
  Speaker 5: my God, I think we need politics in it, you know,
• 30:15
  Speaker 5: to somebody who's accountable to the taxpayer so that they can,
• 30:20
  Speaker 5: when three or four hundred people complain about something, that
• 30:24
  Speaker 5: they'll be listened to and have some action taken on
• 30:26
  Speaker 5: their behalf.
• 30:28
  Speaker 2: So..
• 30:30
  Speaker 5: They need to take a look at how they're spending money.
• 30:32
  Speaker 5: There should be a performance audit done of the whole
• 30:35
  Speaker 5: library system by the state auditor, and there needs to
• 30:39
  Speaker 5: be a change in the legal structure of the authority
• 30:42
  Speaker 5: of the library board of trustees to where that board
• 30:46
  Speaker 5: is accountable.
• 30:50
  Speaker 2: Hang on one second. I'll come back to you right
• 30:52
  Speaker 2: after this.
• 30:53
  Speaker 10: Youngstown's News, Weather, and Talk Station, 570 WKBN.
• 30:59
  Speaker 2: This is Radio 570 WKVN 425. So, Tom, when you
• 31:05
  Speaker 2: sit back, I'm listening to all of this, and it's like,
• 31:08
  Speaker 2: who can fire the library director? Who has the power
• 31:12
  Speaker 2: to say, enough of this person?
• 31:15
  Speaker 5: No one. No one in the public. You know, you
• 31:18
  Speaker 5: can make a complaint to the Attorney General, and he'll investigate.
• 31:21
  Speaker 5: They say, that's a problem. You've got to have, the
• 31:25
  Speaker 5: further you move decision-making from the voter side, the worst
• 31:28
  Speaker 5: of yet sure you gotta have.
• 31:29
  Speaker 2: I just want to get this straight in there it's
• 31:31
  Speaker 2: my money my tax dollars on a federal on a
• 31:35
  Speaker 2: state level in a local level yet i have zero
• 31:38
  Speaker 2: say so on it yet the people of poland have
• 31:40
  Speaker 2: no say so on it and yet we can't get
• 31:42
  Speaker 2: rid of the people that are making the decisions that
• 31:44
  Speaker 2: say to the public screw you it's.
• 31:47
  Speaker 5: A problem with the state government to you know just
• 31:50
  Speaker 5: recently the state legislature changed the amount of the the
• 31:53
  Speaker 5: libraries in ohio there are four there are two hundred
• 31:55
  Speaker 5: and fifty one libraries and the state of ohio gives
• 31:58
  Speaker 5: out $ 500 million a year to those 251 libraries. The
• 32:03
  Speaker 5: local library spends half as much as our sheriff's department
• 32:06
  Speaker 5: does on law enforcement. But our CEO of our library
• 32:13
  Speaker 5: here was down there arguing against that change by the
• 32:16
  Speaker 5: state legislature, where they changed it from giving the library
• 32:20
  Speaker 5: systems in Ohio a percent of the general fund. All
• 32:24
  Speaker 5: the money that the state gets, they got a percent
• 32:26
  Speaker 5: of it. And the state legislature said there's too much money.
• 32:30
  Speaker 5: We're going to give you a fixed amount. And these
• 32:32
  Speaker 5: people were arguing against the fixed amount. And DeWine, you know,
• 32:37
  Speaker 5: he's the guy that I voted for, he didn't like
• 32:40
  Speaker 5: that idea. He was for spending more money. They're not
• 32:43
  Speaker 5: doing their homework. When you give someone $ 500 million, you
• 32:47
  Speaker 5: better be paying attention to what they're doing with that money.
• 32:49
  Speaker 5: You have an obligation to the people who pay the
• 32:52
  Speaker 5: tax bill. You know, the library is not the only
• 32:54
  Speaker 5: one in this type of a situation either. There are
• 32:56
  Speaker 5: other nonprofits and other agencies that don't have any kind
• 33:00
  Speaker 5: of control. And I could point to the WRTA, the
• 33:03
  Speaker 5: Western Reserve Transit Authority, as another example. Somebody in government
• 33:07
  Speaker 5: has to start taking a harder look at these nonprofit organizations.
• 33:11
  Speaker 2: Tom, listen to this. $ 50 million in a bank account
• 33:16
  Speaker 2: that the library has. So their $ 50 million is my
• 33:20
  Speaker 2: tax dollars that they have sitting in a bank account
• 33:23
  Speaker 2: that they're not spending.
• 33:25
  Speaker 5: That's the money they had left at the end of
• 33:26
  Speaker 5: fiscal year 2024. And some of it was in cash.
• 33:33
  Speaker 5: That's off of their tax returns. They've been changing the
• 33:36
  Speaker 5: way they've been keeping their money, taking some of it
• 33:39
  Speaker 5: out of investments and moving it into cash. But the
• 33:42
  Speaker 5: point is that they did have $ 48 million at the
• 33:45
  Speaker 5: end of the year. You know, they had $ 48 million
• 33:48
  Speaker 5: in money. And so they had the money to do it.
• 33:51
  Speaker 5: You know, there's... The state auditor does financial audits, but
• 33:59
  Speaker 5: I don't think people pay any attention to them, you know.
• 34:01
  Speaker 5: And it's just a very bad structure, the way that
• 34:06
  Speaker 5: the library is set up there. And the Mahoney County
• 34:09
  Speaker 5: Library is one of about 20 in the state that
• 34:12
  Speaker 5: are set up that way. The other 230 come under
• 34:15
  Speaker 5: a different part of the Ohio Revital. revised code, and
• 34:20
  Speaker 5: they have some accountability to the taxpayer. These 20 don't
• 34:25
  Speaker 5: have any at all. So the reason why they went
• 34:29
  Speaker 5: and did all these things in Poland, they don't have
• 34:31
  Speaker 5: to answer anybody. And now you're paying the consequences of it.
• 34:35
  Speaker 5: So you need legal change.
• 34:37
  Speaker 2: Amen. Thank you, Tom. Appreciate your insights. All right. You agree?
• 34:42
  Speaker 4: 100%.
• 34:44
  Speaker 2: Just checking to make sure you were paying attention. All right, 99%.
• 34:47
  Speaker 4: All right.
• 34:50
  Speaker 2: Oh, Mr. Architect there. Doesn't want to go out on
• 34:52
  Speaker 2: a limb, huh? You know what I mean? You ever
• 34:54
  Speaker 2: watch Seinfeld? Of course. You know what George always faked
• 34:58
  Speaker 2: like he was?
• 34:59
  Speaker 4: George drove me crazy.
• 35:00
  Speaker 2: He always tells people, guess what he was? An architect, right?
• 35:03
  Speaker 2: George Costanza. That's what he always said. I'm an architect.
• 35:06
  Speaker 4: That was because he thought he'd get respect.
• 35:08
  Speaker 2: Right, exactly. How's that respect thing working out, Bob? I mean,
• 35:12
  Speaker 2: you're on the air.
• 35:13
  Speaker 3: Hello.
• 35:15
  Speaker 2: Hello, line three, are you there?
• 35:17
  Speaker 3: Hello.
• 35:18
  Speaker 2: Yes.
• 35:19
  Speaker 9: Hey, one thing I want to say is I moved
• 35:24
  Speaker 9: to Poland from out west, and I think we're missing
• 35:28
  Speaker 9: what she's really trying to do. And she's bringing in
• 35:33
  Speaker 9: post-modernism regarding architecture. So what that is is it focuses
• 35:39
  Speaker 9: away from the traditional Greek kind of– downtown kind of
• 35:47
  Speaker 9: civic kind of situation with the architecture. It moves it into..
• 35:55
  Speaker 2: Hold that thought. Hold that thought. I got to pause.
• 35:57
  Speaker 2: I'll come back to you in a minute. News Radio
• 35:59
  Speaker 2: 570 WKBN. Stay tuned.
• 36:01
  Speaker 10: News, weather, and talk station.
• 36:03
  Speaker 5: 570 WKBN.
• 36:03
  Speaker 10: News Radio 570 WKBN.
• 36:05
  Speaker 7: 425.
• 36:06
  Speaker 2: So, Tom... When you sit back, I'm listening to all
• 36:13
  Speaker 2: of this, and it's like, who can fire the library director?
• 36:18
  Speaker 2: Who has the power to say, enough of this person?
• 36:22
  Speaker 3: No one.
• 36:23
  Speaker 5: No one in the public. You can make a complaint
• 36:26
  Speaker 5: to the attorney general, and he'll investigate, they say. That's
• 36:30
  Speaker 5: the problem. You've got to have, the further you move
• 36:33
  Speaker 5: decision-making from the voter side, the worst it gets.
• 36:36
  Speaker 2: I just want to get this straight. It's my money,
• 36:39
  Speaker 2: my tax dollars on a federal, on a state level
• 36:42
  Speaker 2: and a local level, yet I have zero say-so on it,
• 36:45
  Speaker 2: yet the people of Poland have no say-so on it,
• 36:48
  Speaker 2: and yet we can't get rid of the people that
• 36:50
  Speaker 2: are making the decisions that say to the public, screw you.
• 36:54
  Speaker 5: It's a problem with the state government, too. You know,
• 36:56
  Speaker 5: just recently the state legislature changed the amount of the
• 37:00
  Speaker 5: libraries in Ohio. There are 251 libraries in and the
• 37:04
  Speaker 5: state of Ohio gives out $ 500 million a year to
• 37:08
  Speaker 5: those 251 libraries. The local library spends half as much
• 37:11
  Speaker 5: as our sheriff's department does on law enforcement. But our
• 37:18
  Speaker 5: CEO of our library here was down there arguing against
• 37:21
  Speaker 5: that change by the state legislature, where they changed it
• 37:24
  Speaker 5: from giving the library systems in Ohio a percent of
• 37:29
  Speaker 5: the general fund. All the money that the state gets,
• 37:32
  Speaker 5: they got a percent of it, And the state legislature
• 37:35
  Speaker 5: said there's too much money. We're going to give you
• 37:38
  Speaker 5: a fixed amount. And these people were arguing against the
• 37:40
  Speaker 5: fixed amount. And DeWine, you know, he's the guy that
• 37:45
  Speaker 5: I voted for. He didn't like that idea. He was
• 37:48
  Speaker 5: for spending more money. They're not doing their homework. When
• 37:51
  Speaker 5: you give someone $ 500 million, you better be paying attention
• 37:55
  Speaker 5: to what they're doing with that money. You have an
• 37:57
  Speaker 5: obligation to the people who pay the tax bill. You know,
• 38:00
  Speaker 5: the library is not the only one in this type
• 38:02
  Speaker 5: of a situation either. There are other nonprofits and other
• 38:05
  Speaker 5: agencies that don't have any kind of control. And I
• 38:07
  Speaker 5: could point to the WRTA, the Western Reserve Transit Authority,
• 38:11
  Speaker 5: as another example. Somebody in government has to start taking
• 38:15
  Speaker 5: a harder look at these nonprofit organizations.
• 38:18
  Speaker 2: Tom, listen to this. $ 50 million in a bank account
• 38:23
  Speaker 2: that the library has. So their $ 50 million is my
• 38:26
  Speaker 2: tax dollars that they have sitting in a bank account
• 38:30
  Speaker 2: that they're not spending.
• 38:32
  Speaker 5: That's the money they had left at the end of
• 38:33
  Speaker 5: fiscal year 2024. And some of it was in cash.
• 38:39
  Speaker 5: That's off of their tax returns. They've been changing the
• 38:42
  Speaker 5: way they've been keeping their money, taking some of it
• 38:46
  Speaker 5: out of investments and moving it into cash. But the
• 38:49
  Speaker 5: point is that they did have $ 48 million at the
• 38:52
  Speaker 5: end of the year. You know, they had $ 48 million
• 38:55
  Speaker 5: in money. And so they had the money to do it.
• 38:58
  Speaker 5: You know, there's... The state auditor does financial audits, but
• 39:06
  Speaker 5: I don't think people pay any attention to them, you know.
• 39:08
  Speaker 5: And it's just a very bad structure, the way that
• 39:12
  Speaker 5: the library is set up there. And the Mahoney County
• 39:16
  Speaker 5: Library is one of about 20 in the state that
• 39:19
  Speaker 5: are set up that way. The other 230 come under
• 39:24
  Speaker 5: a different part of the Ohio Revised Code, and they
• 39:28
  Speaker 5: have some accountability to the taxpayer. These 20 don't have
• 39:32
  Speaker 5: any at all. So the reason why they went and
• 39:36
  Speaker 5: did all these things in Poland, they don't have to
• 39:38
  Speaker 5: answer anybody. And now you're paying the consequences of it.
• 39:42
  Speaker 5: So you need legal change.
• 39:44
  Speaker 2: Amen. Thank you, Tom. Appreciate your insights. All right.
• 39:48
  Speaker 3: You agree?
• 39:51
  Speaker 2: Just checking to make sure you were paying attention.
• 39:54
  Speaker 5: All right, 99%.
• 39:54
  Speaker 2: All right. Oh, Mr. Architect there. Doesn't want to go
• 39:59
  Speaker 2: out on a limb, huh? You know what I mean?
• 40:01
  Speaker 2: You ever watch Seinfeld? Of course. You know what George
• 40:04
  Speaker 2: always faked like he was?
• 40:06
  Speaker 4: George drove me crazy.
• 40:07
  Speaker 2: He always tells people, guess what he was? An architect, right?
• 40:10
  Speaker 2: George Costanza. That's what he always said. I'm an architect.
• 40:13
  Speaker 4: No, it was because he thought he'd get respect.
• 40:15
  Speaker 2: Right, exactly. How's that respect thing working out, Bob? I mean,
• 40:19
  Speaker 2: you're on the air.
• 40:20
  Speaker 6: Hello.
• 40:22
  Speaker 2: Hello, line three, are you there?
• 40:24
  Speaker 3: Hello. Yes.
• 40:26
  Speaker 9: Hey, one thing I want to say is I moved
• 40:31
  Speaker 9: to Poland from.
• 40:32
  Speaker 3: Out west, and I think.
• 40:34
  Speaker 9: We're missing what she's really trying to do. And she's
• 40:39
  Speaker 9: bringing in post-modernism regarding architecture. So what that is is
• 40:45
  Speaker 9: it focuses away from the traditional Greek kind of– downtown
• 40:53
  Speaker 9: kind of civic kind of situation with the architecture.
• 40:57
  Speaker 2: And moves it into... Hold that thought. Hold that thought.
• 41:03
  Speaker 2: I've got to pause. I'll come back to you in
• 41:05
  Speaker 2: a minute. News Radio 570 WKBN. Stay tuned.
• 41:08
  Speaker 10: Let's start here.
• 41:08
  Speaker 3: So good morning and welcome.
• 41:10
  Speaker 10: We are now underway. We're following the events of the day.
• 41:13
  Speaker 10: What we're just now hearing about. This is new information.
• 41:16
  Speaker 10: Throughout the day. Good day. This is where it stands now.
• 41:19
  Speaker 10: Pick up the conversation. We'll talk about what's happening.
• 41:22
  Speaker 2: Anytime. We reached with Iran.
• 41:25
  Speaker 10: Devils in the details. Bringing the price of gasoline down.
• 41:27
  Speaker 10: Maintain the Fed funds rate. Tying FISA to the Save Act.
• 41:30
  Speaker 10: NATO has been a paper tiger for the very latest.
• 41:34
  Speaker 10: We'll see how that all plays out. News Radio 570 WKBN.
• 41:36
  Speaker 10: Bond is being denied.
• 41:42
  Speaker 11: For a man charged in connection with the shooting deaths
• 41:45
  Speaker 11: of three people in Cincinnati's Millvale neighborhood. The victims were
• 41:49
  Speaker 11: fatally shot at a Millvale Court birthday party on June 20th.
• 41:52
  Speaker 11: 62-year-old James Lewis has been indicted on multiple counts of murder.
• 41:57
  Speaker 11: Charges are being filed against a driver who crashed into
• 41:59
  Speaker 11: a new Cleveland business early Sunday. Ready Line Auto Detailing
• 42:03
  Speaker 11: on Bel Air Road opened in January of this year.
• 42:06
  Speaker 11: Earlier this week, police say an intoxicated driver crashed through
• 42:09
  Speaker 11: their reception area. The driver faces charges, including OVI. Bond
• 42:14
  Speaker 11: is set at $ 3 million for a man charged in
• 42:17
  Speaker 11: the July 7th stabbing of a woman in Canton. Julius
• 42:20
  Speaker 11: Edwards is charged with attempted murder in the attack on
• 42:23
  Speaker 11: his girlfriend at a home on 15th Street Southwest. He
• 42:26
  Speaker 11: then led law enforcement in a car chase through Summit County.
• 42:30
  Speaker 11: I'm Andy Betts.
• 42:31
  Speaker 1: Listen on the free iHeartRadio app for all your music, news, talk,
• 42:35
  Speaker 1: and sports radio.
• 42:36
  Speaker 3: Podcasts, too.
• 42:38
  Speaker 2: Download the app.
• 42:39
  Speaker 10: Free never sounded so good. A to Z Dependable Services Plumbing.
• 42:45
  Speaker 1: Now, Ron Verb on NewsRadio 570 WKBN.
• 42:51
  Speaker 2: It is eye-opening what you're hearing today. Bob Mastriano is
• 42:55
  Speaker 2: with us. And 4M Architects is the company. And you
• 43:01
  Speaker 2: are the original architect of the Poland Library. You designed it.
• 43:05
  Speaker 2: You're here to say what's taking place in Poland is
• 43:08
  Speaker 2: a travesty. and a lot of BS as far as
• 43:12
  Speaker 2: replacing that building.
• 43:13
  Speaker 5: Okay.
• 43:14
  Speaker 2: You were saying, caller, before I had to break about contemporary.
• 43:18
  Speaker 2: Go ahead with your thoughts.
• 43:20
  Speaker 9: Well, I saw this out west for about 25 years,
• 43:24
  Speaker 9: and this is in her playbook. And what they do
• 43:26
  Speaker 9: is they change the architecture from traditional architecture to postmodern architecture.
• 43:33
  Speaker 9: And what that does is it takes the– It takes
• 43:37
  Speaker 9: the aesthetic away from the outside and turns it on
• 43:40
  Speaker 9: the inside so they can have traveling shows that have
• 43:44
  Speaker 9: more of a political taste to them that they'll last
• 43:48
  Speaker 9: for about six months in each location. And they kind
• 43:52
  Speaker 9: of come around. And I bet you can guess what
• 43:55
  Speaker 9: the theme of those shows are. And that's what they
• 43:58
  Speaker 9: do with the library system. So this was implemented back
• 44:01
  Speaker 9: in San Francisco back in the early 90s.
• 44:04
  Speaker 3: And they just went..
• 44:05
  Speaker 9: And it's been working its way across the country. So
• 44:08
  Speaker 9: she's done this with the other libraries. So Poland was
• 44:11
  Speaker 9: just next on her list.
• 44:13
  Speaker 3: And I think she really just has a.
• 44:16
  Speaker 9: Deep desire to take away any town's tradition and replace
• 44:21
  Speaker 9: it with post-modernism. And if whatever she has to do, lie, cheat,
• 44:26
  Speaker 9: and steal, she'll do what it does, what.
• 44:29
  Speaker 3: She needs to do.
• 44:30
  Speaker 9: And we've caught her in many lies and half-truths about
• 44:34
  Speaker 9: costs of things and what she's done. And, you know,
• 44:39
  Speaker 9: she said that the busts inside the library of the
• 44:43
  Speaker 9: presidents had no bearing on the traditions of libraries anymore.
• 44:51
  Speaker 9: So she just doesn't think that the founding fathers are important.
• 44:55
  Speaker 9: And it really comes through in the way that she
• 44:57
  Speaker 9: acts and the way that she's treated the architect and
• 45:01
  Speaker 9: the way she treats her staff. Everyone's scared to death
• 45:04
  Speaker 9: of her. And if we don't stop her, she's going
• 45:07
  Speaker 9: to turn the library into a traveling show of whatever
• 45:11
  Speaker 9: she deems necessary.
• 45:14
  Speaker 2: There is zero accountability here.
• 45:20
  Speaker 9: Yeah, she could do it. She's used to doing whatever
• 45:22
  Speaker 9: she wants, and that's what she did out west. And
• 45:24
  Speaker 9: she'll do it here, and it's too bad.
• 45:27
  Speaker 2: Well, who has the ability to hire and fire? Or
• 45:31
  Speaker 2: is she immune from that? The board. I mean, so...
• 45:36
  Speaker 2: At what point does a board get a backbone and say,
• 45:38
  Speaker 2: this is a direction we don't want to go in?
• 45:40
  Speaker 2: Or at what point does a board that lives in
• 45:42
  Speaker 2: this community say, we're ignoring our citizens of this community.
• 45:45
  Speaker 4: And get a backbone? Well, that's what we tried to
• 45:47
  Speaker 4: tell them. They shouldn't... Is this what you want from
• 45:51
  Speaker 4: a director? No, you want him to be responsive to
• 45:54
  Speaker 4: the community, not to the board.
• 45:56
  Speaker 2: The taxpayer.
• 45:56
  Speaker 3: Yeah. They're scared to death of her.
• 45:59
  Speaker 5: Yeah.
• 45:59
  Speaker 4: I mean, you should go to one of their library
• 46:02
  Speaker 4: board meetings. It's really... You've never seen anything like it
• 46:07
  Speaker 4: in your life.
• 46:08
  Speaker 2: What do they just– for you to speak up?
• 46:10
  Speaker 4: First of all, you have to register at least three
• 46:14
  Speaker 4: days before, and you have to give them the subject
• 46:16
  Speaker 4: you're going to talk about. And then if they approve it,
• 46:19
  Speaker 4: then you can show up at the meeting, and then
• 46:22
  Speaker 4: they take you based on when you signed up.
• 46:26
  Speaker 2: And then they– If they approve it.
• 46:28
  Speaker 3: Yeah.
• 46:29
  Speaker 4: Well, you wouldn't be there if they wouldn't approve it
• 46:32
  Speaker 4: to speak. But then you go ahead and– Believe it
• 46:36
  Speaker 4: or not, when it's your turn to speak, they put
• 46:38
  Speaker 4: you on those old-fashioned alarm clocks that have the bell
• 46:41
  Speaker 4: on them. They start the alarm clock right.
• 46:43
  Speaker 2: When you stand up. This is ridiculous.
• 46:45
  Speaker 4: It's like we're children and we're the taxpayers that keep
• 46:49
  Speaker 4: them alive. So they start the clock and they give
• 46:53
  Speaker 4: you three minutes. And if you're not done with your
• 46:56
  Speaker 4: sentence even or finish, you're asked to sit down. That's
• 46:59
  Speaker 4: the end. They hit the clock. And it goes off,
• 47:02
  Speaker 4: and then you ask, and you can ask them any
• 47:06
  Speaker 4: question you want, but they will not answer you. Never,
• 47:10
  Speaker 4: ever do they give you a response. They said, we'll
• 47:13
  Speaker 4: get back to you on that. Just thank you. But
• 47:17
  Speaker 4: they never, never say anything. So the board sits around
• 47:22
  Speaker 4: this big U-shaped table, and they're like zombies. They have
• 47:26
  Speaker 4: no brain or anything else, and they just sit there,
• 47:29
  Speaker 4: And listen, they show no emotion, nothing. And so you
• 47:34
  Speaker 4: just waste your time.
• 47:35
  Speaker 2: This is insanity, isn't it? Yeah, it is.
• 47:37
  Speaker 4: I've been there four or five times. I don't know
• 47:39
  Speaker 4: why I keep going back for more abuse.
• 47:44
  Speaker 2: Because you know why? Because you're a backbone and you care.
• 47:46
  Speaker 2: I'm going to tell you why. Because you care about
• 47:48
  Speaker 2: the building that you designed. You care about the community
• 47:51
  Speaker 2: in which you live. And you know what's going on
• 47:54
  Speaker 2: is a load of crap. That's why you keep going back.
• 47:57
  Speaker 4: Well, it's an experience. You need to go through a
• 48:01
  Speaker 4: library board meeting. Plus, they have them at 430 in
• 48:03
  Speaker 4: the afternoon when most people can't be there because they're working.
• 48:06
  Speaker 4: They control the whole scenario.
• 48:08
  Speaker 2: These are our tax dollars, and we don't have a say-so,
• 48:12
  Speaker 2: or the community shouldn't be listened to. And what this
• 48:15
  Speaker 2: guy is saying, there's a political agenda here. Yeah. And
• 48:19
  Speaker 2: it doesn't matter what the community wants. There's a political
• 48:23
  Speaker 2: agenda here. I'm not interested in having, what do you
• 48:25
  Speaker 2: call it, private rooms where homeless guys can grab a nap.
• 48:28
  Speaker 2: Do you follow me? Or culinary school where guys can
• 48:32
  Speaker 2: get a bag of groceries.
• 48:33
  Speaker 4: What about your free charging stations? There's free charging stations
• 48:37
  Speaker 4: down at the– downtown at the main library. And how
• 48:41
  Speaker 4: many people downtown, the residents down there, have electric vehicles?
• 48:45
  Speaker 2: Right. But meanwhile, if you pull into a Shell station,
• 48:48
  Speaker 2: you've got to pay to charge your car. But down there,
• 48:51
  Speaker 2: as a taxpayer, I pay to charge your car?
• 48:53
  Speaker 4: Yeah.
• 48:54
  Speaker 2: Why isn't there a fuel pump for my car? Why
• 48:56
  Speaker 2: can't I go down there and get gas?
• 48:58
  Speaker 4: Because it's not woke. Everything is done by the national..
• 49:02
  Speaker 2: Why am I paying for electric chargers to charge some
• 49:04
  Speaker 2: electric person's car?
• 49:07
  Speaker 3: Why?
• 49:08
  Speaker 2: How's that part.
• 49:08
  Speaker 3: Of a library?
• 49:09
  Speaker 6: I know.
• 49:10
  Speaker 4: We were smart. We'd buy a car and charge it
• 49:12
  Speaker 4: down there all the time.
• 49:16
  Speaker 2: Anyway. Well, you're the architect. Get a Tesla. You can
• 49:19
  Speaker 2: afford it.
• 49:20
  Speaker 4: Yeah, I would. But then you heard about those fires
• 49:22
  Speaker 4: with the batteries and that.
• 49:24
  Speaker 2: Listen here, Mr.
• 49:25
  Speaker 5: Architect.
• 49:26
  Speaker 2: Don't worry about it. All right. All right. Are you done, caller?
• 49:29
  Speaker 2: I think you made some excellent points.
• 49:31
  Speaker 3: Yeah, thank you very much.
• 49:33
  Speaker 2: All right. Thank you. I mean, he's just saying there's
• 49:35
  Speaker 2: a woke agenda going on.
• 49:36
  Speaker 4: We know there is. How do you.
• 49:39
  Speaker 2: Take the bust out of a library? That's history. Isn't
• 49:44
  Speaker 2: that what that's about?
• 49:45
  Speaker 7: Of course.
• 49:46
  Speaker 4: But they're all white men.
• 49:50
  Speaker 2: Wasn't Washington a white guy? Jefferson?
• 49:52
  Speaker 4: They had to leave him.
• 49:53
  Speaker 2: They left Lincoln, Washington, and McKinley. The Bill of Rights,
• 49:56
  Speaker 2: Declaration of Independence?
• 49:58
  Speaker 4: I know.
• 49:58
  Speaker 2: Should we not display that?
• 50:00
  Speaker 3: Right.
• 50:01
  Speaker 2: Should we not honor these people that have given us
• 50:03
  Speaker 2: a document that's alive today that gives us the ability
• 50:06
  Speaker 2: to sit here and speak freely?
• 50:08
  Speaker 5: Of course.
• 50:09
  Speaker 4: But it's not in their agenda. That's why they're– you
• 50:13
  Speaker 4: know what happens with the– This is craziness. The month
• 50:17
  Speaker 4: of June? The month of June, the libraries transform into,
• 50:20
  Speaker 4: you know what, the TBGQSTXYZ.
• 50:24
  Speaker 2: Okay, the alphabet people.
• 50:25
  Speaker 5: Yeah.
• 50:25
  Speaker 2: All right. You're on the air.
• 50:28
  Speaker 10: Hello.
• 50:30
  Speaker 2: Yes, go ahead.
• 50:32
  Speaker 6: Ron?
• 50:33
  Speaker 2: Mayor?
• 50:34
  Speaker 3: Yes, and Bob, it's nice to hear your voices. Ron, Bob,
• 50:40
  Speaker 3: many years ago, he redid the Mahoney County Courthouse, including
• 50:44
  Speaker 3: when I was the treasurer. He redid the treasurer's office
• 50:47
  Speaker 3: in the most incredibly beautiful, historically appropriate way you could
• 50:52
  Speaker 3: ever imagine. And people have come from all over the
• 50:55
  Speaker 3: country to look at the work that Bob has done
• 50:58
  Speaker 3: on the courthouse. Needless to say, the polling library. I'm
• 51:02
  Speaker 3: going to make a statement.
• 51:06
  Speaker 12: I'll place my ability to be a watchdog of taxpayers'
• 51:12
  Speaker 12: dollars for the last 16 years of public office.
• 51:17
  Speaker 2: George, your phone's breaking up a little bit. Turn left
• 51:19
  Speaker 2: or right or do something so I can hear you better.
• 51:21
  Speaker 2: Can you hear me now? I'll keep trying. I want
• 51:26
  Speaker 2: to hear you loud and clear because there's something about
• 51:28
  Speaker 2: your voice that calms me. Can you hear me now? No,
• 51:33
  Speaker 2: it's breaking up. I don't want to lose your call.
• 51:34
  Speaker 2: Just move around something or whatever.
• 51:37
  Speaker 3: I'm trying to move around.
• 51:39
  Speaker 2: All right, well, go outside in the front yard. Yeah,
• 51:42
  Speaker 2: I've done that before.
• 51:44
  Speaker 3: Wait a minute. Go outside in the front yard. All right.
• 51:46
  Speaker 3: Don't scare the neighbors. I don't want to scare the neighbors.
• 51:52
  Speaker 2: I hope I didn't put you on hold. Yeah, I
• 51:54
  Speaker 2: can hear you. I hope I didn't put you on
• 51:55
  Speaker 2: hold so long your battery's dying.
• 51:57
  Speaker 3: Can you hear me now?
• 51:58
  Speaker 2: I can hear you good enough. I mean, you make
• 52:01
  Speaker 2: a lot of sense to me. So you're saying what
• 52:04
  Speaker 2: he did to the treasurer's office was spectacular, basically.
• 52:07
  Speaker 3: Oh, spectacular. Paul Mastriani's ability as an architect is without peer. Nationally,
• 52:15
  Speaker 3: he's just tremendous. He's a wonderful architect. Let me just
• 52:20
  Speaker 3: say something. I listened to this. The top of my
• 52:23
  Speaker 3: head has come off of listening to everything Paul has said.
• 52:28
  Speaker 3: I'll place my 10 years of managing the taxpayers' dollars
• 52:35
  Speaker 3: against the 17 CFOs that are working for the public library.
• 52:40
  Speaker 3: And I'll place it there any day of the week.
• 52:42
  Speaker 3: For God's sake, why did she need to hire 17 CFOs?
• 52:48
  Speaker 3: Did you tell me that? Wasn't the library working fairly
• 52:51
  Speaker 3: well before she came?
• 52:52
  Speaker 7: Yeah.
• 52:53
  Speaker 3: Yeah.
• 52:54
  Speaker 4: Well, George, there's only seven CFOs. The other ones are
• 52:58
  Speaker 4: underneath them. They're assistant CFOs, whatever those are called.
• 53:02
  Speaker 2: George, you can't have too many CFOs. You've got to
• 53:04
  Speaker 2: have an assistant. You know better than that. You know, George,
• 53:09
  Speaker 2: like when you were mayor. See, George, you're an old-fashioned thinker.
• 53:12
  Speaker 2: When you were mayor of Youngstown, just tell us. I
• 53:16
  Speaker 2: don't care if McKelvey gets upset with me. Here's the
• 53:18
  Speaker 2: George McKelvey story.
• 53:19
  Speaker 3: No.
• 53:22
  Speaker 2: Listen, McKelvey, I'm going to tell this story and I
• 53:24
  Speaker 2: don't care if it upsets you. McKelvey would sit in
• 53:27
  Speaker 2: his studio and he'd take calls from people. The mayor.
• 53:31
  Speaker 2: They would call about a pothole or whatever problem they had.
• 53:34
  Speaker 2: Just sitting right where you are. He'd write it down
• 53:36
  Speaker 2: on a legal pad. We did this before cell phones.
• 53:40
  Speaker 2: We'd do a commercial break. McKelvey would come over on
• 53:42
  Speaker 2: his phone. He would call downtown and tell whoever, go
• 53:45
  Speaker 2: fill a pothole. Go do this. In many cases, the
• 53:49
  Speaker 2: problems that people called about were taken care of before
• 53:51
  Speaker 2: the program ended because McKelvey said these people are customers.
• 53:55
  Speaker 2: He treated them, you know, it wasn't about votes. They
• 53:58
  Speaker 2: were customers. Let's respond to their concerns.
• 54:02
  Speaker 4: Well, that's why everyone loved him.
• 54:04
  Speaker 3: Bob, let me say this. When these apparent issues arose
• 54:11
  Speaker 3: with the library, if I'm sitting on the library board
• 54:15
  Speaker 3: or I'm the library director First person I'm going to
• 54:20
  Speaker 3: call is the architect who designed the building. This is insane.
• 54:28
  Speaker 3: The first person they should have talked to is Bob Mastriani.
• 54:33
  Speaker 3: The person they should.
• 54:34
  Speaker 7: Have followed his guidance is Bob Mastriani. What the hell
• 54:40
  Speaker 7: happened here?
• 54:42
  Speaker 2: Well, I went.
• 54:43
  Speaker 4: And, George, I actually went there when I first heard
• 54:45
  Speaker 4: about this refreshment. I went there and volunteered my services
• 54:49
  Speaker 4: at no cost to her because I didn't want the
• 54:51
  Speaker 4: building desecrated. And she told me, we don't need you.
• 54:54
  Speaker 4: We have our own architects and interior designers.
• 54:57
  Speaker 3: Oh, my God. And that's what we got. A refresh.
• 55:01
  Speaker 3: It looked like an idea store. For God's sake, it
• 55:05
  Speaker 3: was so beautiful. It was going to last forever.
• 55:10
  Speaker 2: I know.
• 55:11
  Speaker 3: And they destroyed that.
• 55:12
  Speaker 5: Yes, I know.
• 55:13
  Speaker 4: I don't even like to go there anymore.
• 55:15
  Speaker 3: I would hope that there were board members that listened
• 55:19
  Speaker 3: to you today, Bob, that woke up. I really would
• 55:23
  Speaker 3: hope so, because I know, as you do, you know
• 55:27
  Speaker 3: many people on the board, very intelligent people on the board,
• 55:31
  Speaker 3: fair-minded people. I would hope they could listen to the
• 55:36
  Speaker 3: show and say, you know, we need to take a
• 55:39
  Speaker 3: second look at this. Amen.
• 55:41
  Speaker 2: I want you to know this, George, before I take
• 55:42
  Speaker 2: another call because you're breaking up. In my house, the
• 55:46
  Speaker 2: bust of George McKelvey does get dust on a regular basis,
• 55:49
  Speaker 2: so it will stay.
• 55:50
  Speaker 3: I can tell you that's still in the library.
• 55:53
  Speaker 2: No, but I'm talking in my house. I have your
• 55:56
  Speaker 2: bust right next to Ungaro.
• 55:58
  Speaker 3: Well, it's done.
• 56:00
  Speaker 2: So I still dust them. Now, I will admit that
• 56:03
  Speaker 2: the cat might have had an accident on your bus,
• 56:06
  Speaker 2: but that's just..
• 56:06
  Speaker 3: Oh, thank you. It's just, it's so wrong to pull
• 56:12
  Speaker 3: on their right. I'm just hoping that this program will
• 56:18
  Speaker 3: allow some of the board members to come to their
• 56:20
  Speaker 3: senses and say, you know, we owe the public.
• 56:23
  Speaker 2: All right, buddy.
• 56:26
  Speaker 4: George, I met with six of them personally.
• 56:28
  Speaker 7: Officially.
• 56:29
  Speaker 4: Would do that george i met with six of them
• 56:32
  Speaker 4: personally that i thought were friends and it did absolutely
• 56:35
  Speaker 4: no good so really yeah so.
• 56:39
  Speaker 3: Well i totally don't understand what they are i don't
• 56:44
  Speaker 3: understand it it's become a yeah a standoff if you
• 56:48
  Speaker 3: will nobody's going to tell us what to.
• 56:49
  Speaker 4: Do right that's that's exactly.
• 56:52
  Speaker 3: It managed taxpayer dollars.
• 56:54
  Speaker 2: Right thank you mayor God bless.
• 56:56
  Speaker 3: Heaven forbid the next letter comes up. Heaven forbid.
• 57:00
  Speaker 2: That's right.
• 57:01
  Speaker 4: Thanks for the kind words, George.
• 57:03
  Speaker 2: He's a hell of a guy. Really.
• 57:07
  Speaker 4: I have a few clients that like me. So anyway,
• 57:12
  Speaker 4: his was the nicest space down in the courthouse. Because
• 57:17
  Speaker 4: he has so much class. He allowed it to really
• 57:20
  Speaker 4: be done right.
• 57:21
  Speaker 2: Yeah, he's just a good dude. You're on the air.
• 57:27
  Speaker 3: Hello. Hello. Hello.
• 57:33
  Speaker 2: Yes.
• 57:35
  Speaker 3: Good afternoon.
• 57:37
  Speaker 2: Yes, speak your piece, please.
• 57:38
  Speaker 8: This is one of the Poland Township trustees calling in.
• 57:42
  Speaker 2: Yes, identify yourself, Poland Township trustee.
• 57:45
  Speaker 8: Yeah, this is Frankie Main. How are you doing today?
• 57:48
  Speaker 2: Okay, Frankie, go ahead. Thank you, man.
• 57:50
  Speaker 8: You know, when I was getting elected this past year
• 57:54
  Speaker 8: and I was running the Save the Library group asked
• 57:56
  Speaker 8: me to come down and support their cause. And, you know,
• 57:59
  Speaker 8: I went down there, Ron, with an open mind, but
• 58:01
  Speaker 8: I also went down there with a mind of, you know,
• 58:04
  Speaker 8: it's the taxpayers that are paying for.
• 58:06
  Speaker 10: This, right?
• 58:08
  Speaker 8: And at the end of the day, whatever the decision
• 58:10
  Speaker 8: was going to be was going to be based on
• 58:12
  Speaker 8: sound numbers. So I sat back and listened and supported
• 58:16
  Speaker 8: the group. And like everyone else, we know it's a
• 58:18
  Speaker 8: beautiful building. We know that it's, you know, the center
• 58:24
  Speaker 8: of our town. So when I was talking with the
• 58:29
  Speaker 8: Save the Library group, there was so much passion. But
• 58:31
  Speaker 8: then after that, evidentiary numbers started coming forward, a lot
• 58:36
  Speaker 8: of which Bob shared today, where things just didn't start
• 58:40
  Speaker 8: to add up. Twenty-five years, Ron, I was in law enforcement.
• 58:45
  Speaker 8: And This is one of the biggest crimes I've ever seen, okay?
• 58:50
  Speaker 8: Because what happened here was I've called down to the library.
• 58:54
  Speaker 8: I've tried talking with people.
• 58:56
  Speaker 3: Nothing.
• 58:57
  Speaker 8: And kind of the final draw with me was when
• 59:00
  Speaker 8: they went on the news and they said, hey, we've
• 59:04
  Speaker 8: met with the community members. We've met with the elected officials.
• 59:08
  Speaker 8: We don't know what this big uprising is all about
• 59:11
  Speaker 8: because we talked with everyone. Everyone's okay with it. Well, Ron,
• 59:15
  Speaker 8: that's kind of when I had enough. That was to
• 59:18
  Speaker 8: say the library group, the action committee.
• 59:20
  Speaker 2: All right, hang on. Hang on, trustee. I got to
• 59:22
  Speaker 2: do a break. I'll come right back to you. Hang on.
• 59:25
  Speaker 2: More in a minute. News Radio 570 WQN. It is
• 59:33
  Speaker 2: eye-opening what you're hearing today. Bob Mastriano is with us.
• 59:38
  Speaker 2: And 4M Architects is the company. And you are the
• 59:43
  Speaker 2: original architect of the Poland Library. You designed it. You're
• 59:47
  Speaker 2: here to say what's taking place in Poland is a
• 59:50
  Speaker 2: travesty and a lot of BS as far as replacing
• 59:55
  Speaker 2: that building. Okay. You were saying, caller, before I had
• 59:57
  Speaker 2: to break about contemporary. Go ahead with your thoughts.
• 1:00:02
  Speaker 9: Well, I saw this out west for about 25 years,
• 1:00:06
  Speaker 9: and this is in her playbook. And what they do
• 1:00:08
  Speaker 9: is they change the architecture from traditional architecture to postmodern architecture.
• 1:00:15
  Speaker 9: And what that does is it takes the aesthetic away
• 1:00:20
  Speaker 9: from the outside and turns it on the inside so
• 1:00:23
  Speaker 9: they can have traveling shows everywhere. that have more of
• 1:00:27
  Speaker 9: a political taste to them that they'll last for about
• 1:00:31
  Speaker 9: six months in each location. And they kind of come around.
• 1:00:35
  Speaker 9: And I bet you can guess what the theme of
• 1:00:38
  Speaker 9: those shows are. And that's what they do with the
• 1:00:40
  Speaker 9: library system. So this was implemented back in San Francisco
• 1:00:44
  Speaker 9: back in the early 90s. And they just went and
• 1:00:47
  Speaker 9: it's been working its way across the country. So she's
• 1:00:51
  Speaker 9: done this with the other libraries. So Poland was just
• 1:00:53
  Speaker 9: next on her list.
• 1:00:55
  Speaker 3: And I think she.
• 1:00:55
  Speaker 9: Really just has a deep desire to take away any
• 1:01:01
  Speaker 9: town's tradition and replace it with post-modernism. And whatever she
• 1:01:07
  Speaker 9: has to do, lie, cheat, and steal, she'll.
• 1:01:09
  Speaker 5: Do what it does, what.
• 1:01:11
  Speaker 9: She needs to do. And we've caught her in many
• 1:01:14
  Speaker 9: lies and half-truths about costs of things and what she's done.
• 1:01:21
  Speaker 9: She said that the bus inside the library of the
• 1:01:25
  Speaker 9: president had no bearing on the traditions of libraries anymore.
• 1:01:33
  Speaker 9: So she just doesn't think that the founding fathers are important.
• 1:01:37
  Speaker 9: And it really comes through in the way that she
• 1:01:39
  Speaker 9: acts and the way that she's treated the architect and
• 1:01:43
  Speaker 9: the way she treats her staff. Everyone's scared to death
• 1:01:46
  Speaker 9: of her. And if we don't stop her, she's going
• 1:01:49
  Speaker 9: to turn the library into a traveling show of whatever
• 1:01:53
  Speaker 9: she deems necessary.
• 1:01:59
  Speaker 2: There is zero accountability here.
• 1:02:01
  Speaker 9: Yeah, she can do it. She's used to doing whatever
• 1:02:04
  Speaker 9: she wants, and that's what she did out west. And
• 1:02:06
  Speaker 9: she'll do it here, and it's too bad.
• 1:02:09
  Speaker 2: Well, who has the ability to hire and fire? Or
• 1:02:13
  Speaker 2: is she immune from that?
• 1:02:14
  Speaker 4: The board.
• 1:02:15
  Speaker 3: The board.
• 1:02:17
  Speaker 2: I mean, so at what point does a board get
• 1:02:19
  Speaker 2: a backbone and say, this is a direction we don't
• 1:02:21
  Speaker 2: want to go in? Or at what point does a
• 1:02:24
  Speaker 2: board that lives in this community say, we're ignoring our
• 1:02:26
  Speaker 2: citizens of this community and get a backbone?
• 1:02:28
  Speaker 4: Well, that's what we tried to tell them. They shouldn't...
• 1:02:31
  Speaker 4: Is this what you want from a director? No, you
• 1:02:33
  Speaker 4: want him to be responsive to the community, not to
• 1:02:37
  Speaker 4: the board.
• 1:02:38
  Speaker 2: The taxpayer.
• 1:02:38
  Speaker 6: Yeah.
• 1:02:39
  Speaker 3: They're scared to death of her.
• 1:02:41
  Speaker 2: Yeah.
• 1:02:42
  Speaker 4: I mean, when you... You should go to one of
• 1:02:44
  Speaker 4: their library board meetings. It's really– you've never seen anything
• 1:02:49
  Speaker 4: like it in your life.
• 1:02:50
  Speaker 2: What are they, just for you to speak up?
• 1:02:52
  Speaker 4: First of all, you have to register at least three
• 1:02:56
  Speaker 4: days before, and you have to give them the subject
• 1:02:58
  Speaker 4: you're going to talk about. And then if they approve it,
• 1:03:01
  Speaker 4: then you can show up at the meeting, and then
• 1:03:04
  Speaker 4: they take you based on when you signed up.
• 1:03:09
  Speaker 2: If they approve it.
• 1:03:10
  Speaker 6: Yeah.
• 1:03:11
  Speaker 4: Well, you wouldn't be there if they wouldn't approve it
• 1:03:14
  Speaker 4: to speak. But then you go ahead and, believe it
• 1:03:18
  Speaker 4: or not, then when it's your turn to speak, they
• 1:03:20
  Speaker 4: put you on those old-fashioned alarm clocks that have the
• 1:03:23
  Speaker 4: bell on them.
• 1:03:23
  Speaker 5: Yeah.
• 1:03:23
  Speaker 4: They start the alarm clock right when you stand up.
• 1:03:26
  Speaker 2: This is ridiculous.
• 1:03:27
  Speaker 4: It's like we're children, and we're the taxpayers that keep
• 1:03:31
  Speaker 4: them alive. But so they start the clock, and they
• 1:03:35
  Speaker 4: give you three minutes, and if you're not done with
• 1:03:38
  Speaker 4: your sentence even or finish— you're asked to sit down,
• 1:03:41
  Speaker 4: that's the end. They hit the clock, and it goes off,
• 1:03:44
  Speaker 4: and then, I mean, this is how, and then you ask,
• 1:03:46
  Speaker 4: and you can ask them any question you want, but
• 1:03:49
  Speaker 4: they will not answer you. Never, ever do they give
• 1:03:53
  Speaker 4: you a response. They said, we'll get back to you
• 1:03:56
  Speaker 4: on that, just thank you, but they never, never say anything,
• 1:04:02
  Speaker 4: so the The board sits around this big U-shaped table,
• 1:04:06
  Speaker 4: and they're like zombies. They have no brain or anything else,
• 1:04:09
  Speaker 4: and they just sit there and listen. They show no emotion, nothing.
• 1:04:14
  Speaker 4: And so you just waste your time.
• 1:04:17
  Speaker 2: This is insanity, isn't it?
• 1:04:18
  Speaker 8: Yeah, it is.
• 1:04:19
  Speaker 4: I've been there four or five times, and I don't
• 1:04:21
  Speaker 4: know why I keep going back for more use.
• 1:04:24
  Speaker 2: Because you know why? Because you're a backbone and you care.
• 1:04:29
  Speaker 2: I'm going to tell you why. Because you care about
• 1:04:30
  Speaker 2: the building that you designed. You care about the community
• 1:04:33
  Speaker 2: in which you live. And you know what's going on
• 1:04:35
  Speaker 2: is a load of crap. That's why you keep going back.
• 1:04:39
  Speaker 4: Well, it's an experience. You need to go through a
• 1:04:43
  Speaker 4: library board meeting. Plus, they have them at 430 in
• 1:04:45
  Speaker 4: the afternoon when most people can't be there because they're working.
• 1:04:48
  Speaker 4: They control the whole scenario.
• 1:04:50
  Speaker 2: These are our tax dollars. And we don't have a say-so.
• 1:04:54
  Speaker 2: Or the community shouldn't be listened to. And what this
• 1:04:57
  Speaker 2: guy is saying... There's a political agenda here.
• 1:05:00
  Speaker 4: Yeah.
• 1:05:01
  Speaker 2: And it doesn't matter what the community wants. There's a
• 1:05:04
  Speaker 2: political agenda here. I'm not interested in having, what do
• 1:05:07
  Speaker 2: you call it, private rooms where homeless guys can grab
• 1:05:09
  Speaker 2: a nap. Do you follow me? Or culinary school where
• 1:05:13
  Speaker 2: guys can get a bag of groceries.
• 1:05:15
  Speaker 4: What about your free charging stations? There's free charging stations
• 1:05:19
  Speaker 4: downtown at the main library. And how many people downtown,
• 1:05:24
  Speaker 4: the residents down there, have electric vehicles?
• 1:05:27
  Speaker 2: Right. But meanwhile, if you pull into a Shell station,
• 1:05:30
  Speaker 2: you've got to pay to charge your car. But down there,
• 1:05:33
  Speaker 2: as a taxpayer, I pay to charge your car?
• 1:05:36
  Speaker 3: Yeah.
• 1:05:36
  Speaker 2: Why isn't there a fuel pump for my car? Why
• 1:05:38
  Speaker 2: can't I go down there and get gas?
• 1:05:40
  Speaker 4: Because it's not woke. Everything is done by the national..
• 1:05:43
  Speaker 2: Why am I paying for electric chargers to charge some
• 1:05:46
  Speaker 2: electric person's car?
• 1:05:49
  Speaker 3: Why?
• 1:05:50
  Speaker 2: How's that part of a library?
• 1:05:51
  Speaker 5: I know.
• 1:05:52
  Speaker 4: We were smart. We'd buy a car and charge it
• 1:05:54
  Speaker 4: down there all the time.
• 1:05:58
  Speaker 5: Anyway.
• 1:05:59
  Speaker 2: Well, you're the architect. Get a Tesla. You can afford it.
• 1:06:02
  Speaker 4: Yeah, I would. But then you heard about those fires
• 1:06:04
  Speaker 4: with the batteries and that.
• 1:06:06
  Speaker 2: Listen here, Mr.
• 1:06:07
  Speaker 4: Architect.
• 1:06:08
  Speaker 2: Don't worry about it. All right. All right. Are you done, caller?
• 1:06:11
  Speaker 2: I think you made some excellent points.
• 1:06:13
  Speaker 9: Yeah, thank you very much.
• 1:06:15
  Speaker 2: All right. Thank you. I mean, he's just saying there's
• 1:06:17
  Speaker 2: a woke agenda going on.
• 1:06:18
  Speaker 4: We know there is.
• 1:06:20
  Speaker 2: How do you take the bust out of a library?
• 1:06:24
  Speaker 3: That's history.
• 1:06:25
  Speaker 2: Well, she... Isn't that what that's about?
• 1:06:27
  Speaker 7: Of course.
• 1:06:28
  Speaker 4: But they're all white men.
• 1:06:31
  Speaker 2: Well, wasn't Washington a white guy?
• 1:06:33
  Speaker 3: Yeah.
• 1:06:34
  Speaker 2: Jefferson.
• 1:06:34
  Speaker 4: They had to leave him.
• 1:06:35
  Speaker 2: I mean, you know that... They left Lincoln, Washington... The
• 1:06:37
  Speaker 2: Bill of Rights, Declaration of Independence.
• 1:06:39
  Speaker 3: I know.
• 1:06:40
  Speaker 2: Isn't that... Should we not display that?
• 1:06:42
  Speaker 3: Right.
• 1:06:43
  Speaker 2: Should we not honor these people that would give us
• 1:06:45
  Speaker 2: a document that's alive today? That gives us the ability
• 1:06:48
  Speaker 2: to sit here and speak freely?
• 1:06:49
  Speaker 5: Of course.
• 1:06:51
  Speaker 4: But it's not in their agenda. That's why they're... You
• 1:06:55
  Speaker 4: know what happens with the..
• 1:06:57
  Speaker 2: This is craziness. The month of June?
• 1:06:59
  Speaker 4: The month of June, the libraries transform into, you know what,
• 1:07:03
  Speaker 4: the TBGQSTXYZ.
• 1:07:05
  Speaker 2: Okay, the alphabet people.
• 1:07:07
  Speaker 4: Yeah.
• 1:07:07
  Speaker 2: All right. You're on the air. Hello? Yes, go ahead.
• 1:07:14
  Speaker 3: Ron? Mayor? Yes, and Bob, it's nice to hear your voices. Ron, Bob...
• 1:07:22
  Speaker 3: Many years ago, he redid the Mahoney County Courthouse, including
• 1:07:26
  Speaker 3: when I was the treasurer. He redid the treasurer's office
• 1:07:29
  Speaker 3: in the most incredibly beautiful, historically appropriate way you could
• 1:07:34
  Speaker 3: ever imagine. And people have come from all over the
• 1:07:37
  Speaker 3: country to look at the work that Bob has done
• 1:07:40
  Speaker 3: on the courthouse. Needless to say, the Polar Library. I'm
• 1:07:44
  Speaker 3: going to make a statement. You're right, Bob. I'll place my...
• 1:07:51
  Speaker 3: ability to be a watchdog of taxpayers' dollars for the
• 1:07:55
  Speaker 3: last 16 years of public office.
• 1:07:59
  Speaker 2: George, your phone's breaking up a little bit. Turn left
• 1:08:01
  Speaker 2: or right or do something so I can hear you better.
• 1:08:03
  Speaker 3: Can you hear me now?
• 1:08:06
  Speaker 2: No, I'll keep trying. I want to hear you loud
• 1:08:09
  Speaker 2: and clear because there's something about your voice that calms me.
• 1:08:12
  Speaker 3: Can you hear me now?
• 1:08:14
  Speaker 2: No, it's breaking up. I don't want to lose your call.
• 1:08:16
  Speaker 2: Just move around something or whatever.
• 1:08:19
  Speaker 3: I'm trying to move around.
• 1:08:21
  Speaker 2: All right, well, go outside in the front yard. I've
• 1:08:24
  Speaker 2: done that before. Wait a minute.
• 1:08:26
  Speaker 3: Go outside in the front yard.
• 1:08:27
  Speaker 2: All right.
• 1:08:28
  Speaker 3: Don't scare the neighbors. I don't want to scare the neighbors.
• 1:08:34
  Speaker 2: I hope I didn't put you on hold. Yeah, I
• 1:08:36
  Speaker 2: can hear you. I hope I didn't put you on
• 1:08:37
  Speaker 2: hold so long your battery's dying.
• 1:08:39
  Speaker 3: Can you hear me now?
• 1:08:40
  Speaker 2: I can hear you good enough. I mean, you make
• 1:08:43
  Speaker 2: a lot of sense to me. So you're saying what
• 1:08:46
  Speaker 2: he did to the treasurer's office was spectacular, basically.
• 1:08:49
  Speaker 3: Oh, spectacular. Paul Mastriani's ability as an architect is without peer. Nationally,
• 1:08:57
  Speaker 3: he's just tremendous. He's a wonderful architect. Let me just
• 1:09:02
  Speaker 3: say something. I listened to this. The top of my
• 1:09:05
  Speaker 3: head has come off of listening to everything Bob has said.
• 1:09:10
  Speaker 3: I'll place my 16 years of managing the taxpayers' dollars
• 1:09:17
  Speaker 3: against the 17 CFOs that are working for the public library,
• 1:09:22
  Speaker 3: unless they're any different. For God's sake, why did she
• 1:09:27
  Speaker 3: need to hire 17 CFOs?
• 1:09:30
  Speaker 7: Did you tell me that?
• 1:09:31
  Speaker 3: Wasn't the library working fairly well before she came?
• 1:09:35
  Speaker 2: Yeah.
• 1:09:36
  Speaker 4: Well, George, there's only seven CFOs. The other ones are
• 1:09:40
  Speaker 4: underneath them. They're assistant CFOs, whatever those are called.
• 1:09:44
  Speaker 2: George, you can't have too many CFOs. You've got to
• 1:09:46
  Speaker 2: have an assistant. You know better than that. You know,
• 1:09:49
  Speaker 2: I mean, like, you know, George, like when you were mayor, say, George,
• 1:09:53
  Speaker 2: you're an old fashioned thinker when you were mayor of Youngstown.
• 1:09:57
  Speaker 2: Here's just tell us. I don't care. McKelvey gets upset
• 1:09:59
  Speaker 2: with me. Here's the George McKelvey story. Listen, McKelvey, I'm
• 1:10:05
  Speaker 2: going to tell this story and I don't care if
• 1:10:06
  Speaker 2: it upsets you. McKelvey would sit in his studio and
• 1:10:10
  Speaker 2: he'd take calls from people, the mayor. They would call
• 1:10:14
  Speaker 2: about a pothole or whatever problem they had. Just sitting
• 1:10:17
  Speaker 2: right where you are. He'd write it down on a
• 1:10:19
  Speaker 2: legal pad. We did this before cell phones. We'd do
• 1:10:22
  Speaker 2: a commercial break. McKelvey would come over on his phone.
• 1:10:24
  Speaker 2: He would call downtown and tell whoever, go fill a pothole.
• 1:10:28
  Speaker 2: Go do this. In many cases, the problems that people
• 1:10:32
  Speaker 2: called about were taken care of before the program ended,
• 1:10:34
  Speaker 2: because McKelvey said these people are customers. He treated them,
• 1:10:38
  Speaker 2: you know, it wasn't about votes, they were customers. Let's
• 1:10:41
  Speaker 2: respond to their concerns.
• 1:10:44
  Speaker 4: Well, that's why everyone loved him.
• 1:10:46
  Speaker 3: Bob, let me say this. When these apparent issues arose
• 1:10:53
  Speaker 3: with the library, if I'm sitting on the library board,
• 1:10:57
  Speaker 3: or I'm the library director, The first person I'm going
• 1:11:02
  Speaker 3: to call is the architect who designed the building.
• 1:11:08
  Speaker 7: It is insane.
• 1:11:10
  Speaker 3: The first person they should have talked to is Bob Mastriani.
• 1:11:15
  Speaker 3: The person they should.
• 1:11:16
  Speaker 7: Have followed his guidance is Bob Mastriani. What the hell
• 1:11:22
  Speaker 7: happened here?
• 1:11:23
  Speaker 3: Well, I went.
• 1:11:25
  Speaker 4: George, I actually went there when I first heard about
• 1:11:27
  Speaker 4: this refreshment. I went there and volunteered my services at
• 1:11:31
  Speaker 4: no cost to her because I didn't want the building desecrated.
• 1:11:34
  Speaker 4: And she told me, we don't need you. We have
• 1:11:37
  Speaker 4: our own architects and interior designers.
• 1:11:39
  Speaker 3: Oh, my.
• 1:11:40
  Speaker 4: And that's what we got.
• 1:11:42
  Speaker 3: A refresh.
• 1:11:43
  Speaker 7: It looked like an idea store.
• 1:11:46
  Speaker 3: For God's sake, it.
• 1:11:47
  Speaker 7: Was so beautiful.
• 1:11:50
  Speaker 3: It was going to last forever. I know. And they
• 1:11:53
  Speaker 3: destroyed that.
• 1:11:54
  Speaker 5: Yes, I know.
• 1:11:55
  Speaker 4: I don't even like to go there anymore.
• 1:11:57
  Speaker 3: I would hope that there were board members that listened
• 1:12:01
  Speaker 3: to you today, Bob, that woke up. I really hope so,
• 1:12:05
  Speaker 3: because I know, as you do, you know many people
• 1:12:09
  Speaker 3: on the board, very intelligent people on the board, fair-minded people.
• 1:12:15
  Speaker 3: I would hope they could listen to this show and say,
• 1:12:19
  Speaker 3: you know, we need to take a second look at this.
• 1:12:22
  Speaker 2: Amen. I want you to know this, George, before I
• 1:12:24
  Speaker 2: take another call because you're breaking up. In my house,
• 1:12:28
  Speaker 2: the bust of George McKelvey does get dust on a
• 1:12:30
  Speaker 2: regular basis, so it will stay.
• 1:12:32
  Speaker 3: I can tell you that's still in the library.
• 1:12:35
  Speaker 2: No, but I'm talking in my house. I have your
• 1:12:38
  Speaker 2: bust right next to Ungaro.
• 1:12:40
  Speaker 3: Well, it's done.
• 1:12:42
  Speaker 2: So I still dust them. Now, I will admit that
• 1:12:45
  Speaker 2: the cat might have had an accident on your bust,
• 1:12:48
  Speaker 2: but that's just..
• 1:12:48
  Speaker 3: Oh, thank you. It's just, it's so wrong to pull
• 1:12:54
  Speaker 3: a pull on their right. I'm just hoping that this
• 1:12:58
  Speaker 3: program will allow some of the board members to come
• 1:13:02
  Speaker 3: to their senses and say, you know, we owe the public.
• 1:13:05
  Speaker 2: All right, buddy.
• 1:13:08
  Speaker 4: Well, George, I met with six.
• 1:13:09
  Speaker 2: Of them personally.
• 1:13:10
  Speaker 3: I met with Integrity would do that.
• 1:13:12
  Speaker 4: George, I met with six of them personally that I
• 1:13:14
  Speaker 4: thought were friends, and it did absolutely no good.
• 1:13:19
  Speaker 3: Really?
• 1:13:20
  Speaker 4: Yeah.
• 1:13:21
  Speaker 3: Well, I totally don't understand what they are. I don't
• 1:13:26
  Speaker 3: understand it. It's become a standoff, if you will, where
• 1:13:30
  Speaker 3: nobody's going to tell us what to do.
• 1:13:32
  Speaker 2: Right.
• 1:13:33
  Speaker 3: That's not the way to manage taxpayer dollars.
• 1:13:36
  Speaker 2: Thank you, Mayor. God bless.
• 1:13:38
  Speaker 3: Heaven forbid the next leg comes up, Ron. Heaven forbid.
• 1:13:42
  Speaker 2: That's right.
• 1:13:43
  Speaker 4: Thanks for the kind words, George.
• 1:13:45
  Speaker 2: He's a hell of a guy. Really.
• 1:13:49
  Speaker 4: I have a few clients that like me.
• 1:13:52
  Speaker 2: So, anyway.
• 1:13:54
  Speaker 4: But his was the nicest space down in the courthouse.
• 1:13:57
  Speaker 4: Because he has so much class. He allowed it to
• 1:14:02
  Speaker 4: really be done right.
• 1:14:03
  Speaker 2: Yeah, he's just a good dude. You're on the air. Hello. Hello.
• 1:14:14
  Speaker 3: Hello.
• 1:14:15
  Speaker 2: Yes.
• 1:14:17
  Speaker 8: Good afternoon.
• 1:14:18
  Speaker 5: Yes.
• 1:14:19
  Speaker 2: Speak your piece, please.
• 1:14:21
  Speaker 8: This is one of the Poland Township trustees calling in.
• 1:14:24
  Speaker 2: Yes. Identify yourself, Poland Township trustee.
• 1:14:27
  Speaker 8: Yeah, this is Frankie Mayne. How are you doing today?
• 1:14:30
  Speaker 2: Okay, Frankie. Go ahead. Frankie Mayne.
• 1:14:32
  Speaker 8: You know, when I was getting elected this past year
• 1:14:36
  Speaker 8: and I was running the Save the Library group asked
• 1:14:38
  Speaker 8: me to come down and support their cause. And, you know,
• 1:14:41
  Speaker 8: I went down there, Ron, with an open mind, but
• 1:14:43
  Speaker 8: I also went down there with a mind of, you know,
• 1:14:46
  Speaker 8: it's the taxpayers that are paying for this, right? And
• 1:14:50
  Speaker 8: at the end of the day, whatever the decision was
• 1:14:53
  Speaker 8: going to be was going to be based on sound numbers.
• 1:14:55
  Speaker 8: So I sat back and listened and supported the group.
• 1:14:59
  Speaker 8: And like everyone else, we know it's a beautiful building.
• 1:15:02
  Speaker 8: We know that it's the center of our town. So
• 1:15:09
  Speaker 8: when I was talking with the Save the Library group,
• 1:15:11
  Speaker 8: there was so much passion. But then after that, evidentiary
• 1:15:15
  Speaker 8: numbers started coming forward, a lot of which Bob shared today,
• 1:15:20
  Speaker 8: where things just didn't start to add up. Twenty-five years, Ron,
• 1:15:25
  Speaker 8: I was in law enforcement.
• 1:15:27
  Speaker 2: And..
• 1:15:28
  Speaker 8: This is one of the biggest crimes I've ever seen, okay?
• 1:15:32
  Speaker 8: Because what happened here was I've called down to the library.
• 1:15:36
  Speaker 8: I've tried talking with people.
• 1:15:38
  Speaker 3: Nothing.
• 1:15:39
  Speaker 8: And kind of the final draw with me was when
• 1:15:42
  Speaker 8: they went on the news and they said, hey, we've
• 1:15:46
  Speaker 8: met with the community members. We've met with the elected officials.
• 1:15:50
  Speaker 8: We don't know what this big uprising is all about
• 1:15:53
  Speaker 8: because we talked with everyone. Everyone's okay with it. Well, Ron,
• 1:15:57
  Speaker 8: that's kind of when I had enough. And that was
• 1:16:00
  Speaker 8: to save the library group, the action committee.
• 1:16:02
  Speaker 2: All right, hang on. Hang on, trustee. I've got to
• 1:16:04
  Speaker 2: do a break. I'll come right back to you. Hang on.
• 1:16:07
  Speaker 2: More in a minute. News Radio 570 WKBN.
• 1:16:10
  Speaker 10: 570 WKBN.
• 1:16:12
  Speaker 2: Back to it. Ron Bird with Bob Mastriana. And we're
• 1:16:15
  Speaker 2: talking about the Poland Library. What a travesty is going
• 1:16:18
  Speaker 2: on in that community. Beautiful, beautiful. I mean, if you
• 1:16:21
  Speaker 2: haven't seen it, it's worth just coming to take it
• 1:16:24
  Speaker 2: all in. It's not as spectacular as it used to be,
• 1:16:27
  Speaker 2: but it's still spectacular. Let's put it that way. I
• 1:16:29
  Speaker 2: want to go back to this polling. You're a polling trustee,
• 1:16:32
  Speaker 2: and go ahead with your comments.
• 1:16:34
  Speaker 7: Yes, sir.
• 1:16:34
  Speaker 8: So we were saying before the break, so once I
• 1:16:37
  Speaker 8: saw on the news that they started, they being the
• 1:16:40
  Speaker 8: library board and members of the library, started putting out
• 1:16:43
  Speaker 8: information that was not factual. They said that they had
• 1:16:47
  Speaker 8: met with the elected officials. They had met with community residents.
• 1:16:51
  Speaker 8: The Poland Township Trustees, we had the community in. They
• 1:16:55
  Speaker 8: did not want the library moved over to the proposed location.
• 1:17:00
  Speaker 8: So one of the biggest things that I saw was
• 1:17:02
  Speaker 8: the sanitary, the sanitary lines, and they did not have
• 1:17:05
  Speaker 8: the full price of the sanitary lines in the new building. So, again,
• 1:17:10
  Speaker 8: I was basing all of this off of facts, right?
• 1:17:13
  Speaker 8: No emotions, nothing about a beautiful building, just what makes
• 1:17:18
  Speaker 8: financial sense for the taxpayers in Mahoney County and Poland.
• 1:17:22
  Speaker 8: And once I saw those discrepancies and what they were reporting,
• 1:17:26
  Speaker 8: I kind of had enough. And I said, okay, I'm
• 1:17:28
  Speaker 8: going to call a roundtable. And hosted at Poland Township
• 1:17:33
  Speaker 8: had Mike Woolley there, Al Catrona, the commissioners, Village council,
• 1:17:38
  Speaker 8: township trustees were there. And then the smoking gun in
• 1:17:41
  Speaker 8: the whole room was the sanitary, the sanitary district.
• 1:17:45
  Speaker 3: And we have a big issue with.
• 1:17:47
  Speaker 8: Sanitary right now in Poland and not being able to
• 1:17:49
  Speaker 8: build because they're at capacity. That's a whole other story.
• 1:17:53
  Speaker 8: So I'm like, how are they going to put this
• 1:17:55
  Speaker 8: library in? So I speak with sanitary district and spoke
• 1:17:59
  Speaker 8: with Bernie Petro, who's head of it. And I said, hey, Bernie,
• 1:18:02
  Speaker 8: they're saying on the news that they spoke to you.
• 1:18:06
  Speaker 8: And you're saying this is okay, they could put this
• 1:18:08
  Speaker 8: building out there. Well, once we had the roundtable, Bernie
• 1:18:11
  Speaker 8: spoke at that and said, not only did they not
• 1:18:15
  Speaker 8: call him, but they didn't even include a fraction of
• 1:18:18
  Speaker 8: the cost that it would cost to put into the
• 1:18:20
  Speaker 8: new building. So that's kind of really what set everything
• 1:18:25
  Speaker 8: off as far as I'm concerned, is because what they
• 1:18:28
  Speaker 8: did was they escalated the numbers on the current library
• 1:18:33
  Speaker 8: to And they de-escalated the numbers on the new building,
• 1:18:36
  Speaker 8: which Bob did a fabulous job of illustrating here. And
• 1:18:40
  Speaker 8: I said, this isn't right. This isn't right. So not
• 1:18:44
  Speaker 8: because of emotion, but because of financial sense and doing
• 1:18:48
  Speaker 8: what's right with the taxpayers. money, that's where I really
• 1:18:53
  Speaker 8: spoke up and kind of put my foot on the
• 1:18:55
  Speaker 8: gas and said, okay, enough's enough.
• 1:18:57
  Speaker 2: All right, hold that thought. Let me do my headlines.
• 1:18:59
  Speaker 2: I'm coming back to you. Coming back to the polling trustee.
• 1:19:02
  Speaker 2: More with you, Bob, when we return. NewsRadio 570 WKBN.
• 1:19:05
  Speaker 2: NewsRadio 570 WKBN. Back to it. Ron Bird with Bob Mastriana.
• 1:19:12
  Speaker 2: And we're talking about the Poland Library. What a travesty
• 1:19:15
  Speaker 2: is going on in that community. Beautiful, beautiful. I mean,
• 1:19:18
  Speaker 2: if you haven't seen it, it's worth just coming to
• 1:19:21
  Speaker 2: take it all in. It's not as spectacular as it
• 1:19:24
  Speaker 2: used to be, but it's still spectacular. Let's put it
• 1:19:26
  Speaker 2: that way. I want to go back to this Poland,
• 1:19:28
  Speaker 2: your Poland trustee, and go ahead with your comments.
• 1:19:31
  Speaker 7: Yes, sir.
• 1:19:32
  Speaker 8: So we were saying before the break, so once I
• 1:19:34
  Speaker 8: saw on the news that they started, they being the
• 1:19:37
  Speaker 8: library board and members of the library, started putting out
• 1:19:40
  Speaker 8: information that was not factual. They said that they had
• 1:19:44
  Speaker 8: met with the elected officials. They had met with community residents.
• 1:19:48
  Speaker 8: The Poland Township Trustees, we had the community in. They
• 1:19:52
  Speaker 8: did not want the library moved over to the proposed location.
• 1:19:57
  Speaker 8: So one of the biggest things that I saw was
• 1:19:59
  Speaker 8: the sanitary lines, and they did not have the full
• 1:20:03
  Speaker 8: price of the sanitary lines in the new building.
• 1:20:07
  Speaker 3: So, again, I was.
• 1:20:08
  Speaker 8: Basing all of this off of facts, right? No emotions,
• 1:20:11
  Speaker 8: nothing about a beautiful building, just what makes financial sense
• 1:20:16
  Speaker 8: for the taxpayers in Mahoning County and Poland. And once
• 1:20:19
  Speaker 8: I saw those discrepancies and what they were reporting, I
• 1:20:24
  Speaker 8: kind of had enough. And I said, okay, I'm going
• 1:20:25
  Speaker 8: to call a roundtable. And hosted it at Poland Township.
• 1:20:30
  Speaker 8: Had Mike Lulee there, Alcatrona, the commissioners, village council, township
• 1:20:35
  Speaker 8: trustees were there. And then the smoking gun in the
• 1:20:39
  Speaker 8: whole room was the sanitary, the sanitary district. And we
• 1:20:42
  Speaker 8: have a big issue with sanitary right now in Poland
• 1:20:45
  Speaker 8: and not being able to build because they're at capacity.
• 1:20:49
  Speaker 8: That's a whole other story. So I'm like, how are
• 1:20:51
  Speaker 8: they going to put this library in? So I speak
• 1:20:54
  Speaker 8: with the sanitary district and spoke with Bernie Petro, who's
• 1:20:58
  Speaker 8: head of it, and I said, hey, Bernie, they're saying
• 1:21:00
  Speaker 8: on the news that they spoke to you, and you're
• 1:21:04
  Speaker 8: saying this is okay, they could put this building out there. Well,
• 1:21:07
  Speaker 8: once we had the roundtable, Bernie spoke at that and
• 1:21:10
  Speaker 8: said not only did they not call him, but they
• 1:21:13
  Speaker 8: didn't even include a fraction of the cost that it
• 1:21:16
  Speaker 8: would cost to put into the new buildings. So that's
• 1:21:19
  Speaker 8: kind of really what set everything off as far as
• 1:21:23
  Speaker 8: I'm concerned, is because what they did was they escalated
• 1:21:27
  Speaker 8: the numbers on the current library, and they de-escalated the
• 1:21:32
  Speaker 8: numbers on the new building, which Bob did a fabulous
• 1:21:34
  Speaker 8: job of illustrating here. And I said, this isn't right.
• 1:21:39
  Speaker 8: This isn't right. So not because of emotion, but because
• 1:21:42
  Speaker 8: of financial sense and doing what's right with the taxpayers' money,
• 1:21:48
  Speaker 8: that's where I really spoke up and kind of put
• 1:21:51
  Speaker 8: my foot on the gas and said, okay, enough's enough.
• 1:21:54
  Speaker 2: All right, hold that thought. Let me do my headlines.
• 1:21:56
  Speaker 2: I'm coming back to you. Coming back to the polling trustee.
• 1:21:59
  Speaker 2: More with you, Bob, when we return. NewsRadio 570 WQEN.