×

Public defenders: New name, new leader, same mission

LISBON — Indigent defendants will continue to receive public defender services, but this time there is a another person in charge under a group with a different name.

County commissioners last week agreed to contract with Defendants Have Rights (DHR), and defense attorney and former Municipal Court judge Chris Amato will be in charge.

For the past several years, the contract has been with the Columbiana County Defense League, and defense attorney Kelly Linger was the supervisor. She has since stepped down, forcing the non-profit to reorganize under a different name and file new articles of incorporation with the Ohio Secretary of State.

“Chris Amato has agreed to head up the public defender corporation, so they obviously needed a new LLC,” said Commissioner Mike Halleck, who added nothing will change other than the name and who is in charge.

The contract calls for DHR to be paid no more than $636,000, which is the same ceiling in place last year when the Columbiana County Defense League provided the service.

The 10 attorneys who serve as public defenders are hired and paid by the DHR. To save money, commissioners decided in 1997 to create a non-profit agency to provide public defender services rather than continue to operate it as a county department because of the rising costs.

Halleck defended the decision, saying it has paid off in a big way.

“If we still had that and we’re paying for it, it would be over $2 million today,” he estimated.

The state has also increase the amount it reimburses counties for providing public defender services from 70 percent to 100 percent in 2021, which means the county will get whatever it spends back.

“That’s certainly a great benefit for us,” Halleck said.

In other business, commissioners received $169,287 from the county Transportation Improvement District (TID), another non-profit organization created by commissioners to help with local road projects. TID applied for a grant from the Ohio Department of Transportation, with commissioners agreeing to front them the money, with the promise TID would repay commissioners once the grant monies were received.

TID used the grant to help Wellsville repair major intersections on Clark and Aten avenues and 17th and Main streets. The total project cost was $525,183 and it was completed this fall. Once this occurred, the grant funds were released and the TID board voted to repay the money to commissioners.

Finally, commissioners authorized the local Community Action Agency (CAA) to join NEORide, a non-profit organization that provides services for public transportation agencies in Ohio. There are currently 15 public transportation agencies that are members.

CAA operates CARTS, the local public transportation system. Commissioners are responsible for contracting with CARTS and obtaining the federal funding that pays for the service.

Commissioners Tim Weigle said it his understanding that CARTS cannot travel beyond the county line. He said this agreement will help CARTS riders who need transportation to other counties because NEORide can coordinate arrangements among other public transportation agencies.

For example, if a CARTS rider has a doctor’s appointment in Mahoning County, arrangements would be made by NEORide for the CARTS driver to meet a counterpart from Mahoning County at the border to take the rider the rest of the way.

tgiambroni@mojonews.com

NEWSLETTER

Today's breaking news and more in your inbox

I'm interested in (please check all that apply)
Are you a paying subscriber to the newspaper? *
   

COMMENTS

[vivafbcomment]

Starting at $4.39/week.

Subscribe Today