Must Reads 12/16/09

The Wedding? I’m Here for the Cookies

Youngstown cookie tables (article) are legend, and the New York Times this week has an article and video on Pittsburgh and Youngstown cookie tables (video).

For as long as anyone here can remember, wedding receptions in Pittsburgh have featured cookie tables, laden with dozens of homemade old-fashioned offerings like lady locks, pizzelles and buckeyes. For weeks ahead — sometimes months — mothers and aunts and grandmas and in-laws hunker down in the kitchen baking and freezing. Then, on the big day, hungry guests ravage the buffet, piling plates high and packing more in takeout containers so they can have them for breakfast the next day.

No one knows for sure who started the tradition, or why it hasn’t exactly taken hold outside this region. Many people credit Italian and Eastern European immigrants who wanted to bring a bit of the Old Country to the big day in the New World. Given that many of them were already well practiced at laying out a Christmas spread, baking 8 to 10 times as many treats for a few hundred special friends and relatives may not have seemed like such a stretch.

But even amid the increasing professionalization of the wedding, with florists mimicking slick arrangements ripped from Martha Stewart’s magazines and wedding planners scheduling each event down to the minute, the descendants of those Pittsburgh settlers continue to haul their homemade cookies into the fanciest hotels and wedding venues around the city. For many families today, it would be bordering on sacrilege to do without the table.

So many things to do, so little time

Geniene Pernotto covers the many ways to take part in the holiday happenings around the Valley.

Life seems to get crazier and busier as children grow. Doesn’t it? But I do have to say it is easier to find things to do with your children as they get older and there are more activities in this area for older kids. I still envy my friends that live in areas with Gymborees (the play kind, not the clothing store) or who have party houses that soley cater children’s themed parties. Regardless, the Mahoning Valley has been busy with activities and I’ve been lucky enough to take my 3 year old daughter to some.

Metalico Acquires Youngstown Operations

Ran across this interesting news on CNNMoney.com. I’m not sure what the implications are, but a Pittsburgh scrap company, Metalico, is purchasing Youngstown Iron & Metal and Atlas Recycling, including “all inventory and equipment and will include all real estate owned by affiliates of the sellers and used in their businesses.” The operations are adjacent to V&M Star, which we all hope will soon announce a significant expansion.

YIM, over the last two years, averaged $50 million of annual revenue and sold an annual average of 105,000 gross tons of scrap steel and approximately 15 million pounds of non-ferrous products. The YIM operations complement Metalico’s Akron, Ohio scrap operations only 50 miles west of Youngstown. Metalico’s Pittsburgh regional scrap operations are headquartered only 70 miles east of the new facilities. YIM will draw on Metalico’s extensive network of scrap suppliers and its capital resources to greatly increase operating capacity and utilization at the shredder and elsewhere in the operations.

YIM’s contribution to Metalico’s results is expected to be accretive to earnings immediately.

Commenting on the acquisition, Metalico President and Chief Executive Officer Carlos E. Agüero said, “The Youngstown purchase is consistent with Metalico’s expansion strategy of penetrating geographically contiguous markets and extracting the operating synergies that surface in consolidation.”

East Side Wetlands Project – “The Wetlands”

YSU has issued a report (pdf) outlining “the steps necessary to establish a 112-acre wetland mitigation bank on the city’s east side.”

Section 1 provides an introduction and background to the project, and an overview of wetlands and existing mitigation banks in Ohio. Section 2 contains the process that was used to select the 112-acre Mitigation Bank Target Area on the city’s east side. Section 3 focuses on recommendations to the city for acquiring the necessary property to establish a mitigation bank, preparation of the site for construction of wetlands, and completing the necessary legal steps to establish a mitigation bank in the target area. Section 4 provides a detailed analysis of compensatory mitigation banking rules and regulations.

All property necessary for the development of a mitigation bank should be acquired prior to beginning the process for establishing the bank, but only after the city has committed to constructing the bank. However, the city may choose to construct a smaller mitigation bank within the target area on a 20-acre property currently owned by the city, and begin selling mitigation credits from that bank. This property is referred to as the Miltonia Avenue Site throughout this report. The city may then use those funds to acquire the remainder of the property within the target area to expand the mitigation bank.

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