City of St. Clairsville
City of St. Clairsville

March 4, 2019 Council Minutes

COUNCIL MINUTES

March 4, 2019

St. Clairsville City Council met in Council Chambers on Monday, March 4, 2019 with the following present:

Tim Porter, Council President                                    Terry Pugh, Mayor

Perry Basile, Council 1st Ward                                    Cindi Henry, Finance Director

Mark Bukmir, Council 3rd Ward                                 Richard Myser, Law Director

Linda Jordan, Council-At-Large                                 Tom Murphy, Planning & Zoning Administrator

Beth Oprisch, Council-At-Large                                 Jim Zucal, Service Director

Frank Sabatino, Council 2nd Ward                             Mike Troullos, Police Lieutenant

Mike Smith, Council-At-Large                                    Don Smithberger, Director of General Services

Jim Velas, Council 4th Ward

The meeting was called to order by President, Tim Porter

MINUTES:  Minutes of the February 19, 2019 meeting were distributed to Council.  A motion was made by Linda Jordan and seconded by Jim Velas to approve the Minutes of February 19, 2019.

Roll Call Vote:

Basile                    Yes                        Sabatino                Yes             

Bukmir                  Yes                        Smith                    Yes

Jordan                   Yes                        Velas                     Yes

Oprisch                  Yes

Roll Call Vote:       Seven (7) Yes             Zero (0) No                  Motion Approved

CITIZENS HEARING: 

Daniel and Andrea Barritt: 

We just wanted to come to ask the Mayor and Council for permission to use the Courtyard as we have in the past and the use of the tent.  The National Day of Prayer this year will be on May 2nd starting at 11:30 with music and the week prior to that the National Bible Reading Marathon will begin on Thursday, April 25th at noon.  That will finish up on Wednesday, May 1st.  We are requesting that the tent be up on the 25th of April.  We are always very appreciative of what the Mayor and Council does for us and thank you all very much.  Tim Porter:  Can we have a motion to have the National Day of Prayer and the Bible Reading Marathon at the Courtyard?  A motion was made by Linda Jordan and seconded by Perry Basile to approve these events.

Roll Call Vote:

Basile                     Yes                        Sabatino                Yes             

Bukmir                   Yes                        Smith                     Yes

Jordan                   Yes                         Velas                     Yes

Oprisch                  Yes

Roll Call Vote:       Seven (7) Yes             Zero (0) No                  Motion Approved

REPORTS:

Service Director, Jim Zucal:

I have a brief report this evening.  You have before you a new piece of legislation.  Mr. Myser can certainly go into more detail but we are amending the amendment from last year.  There was a section in there with one sentence in there that referred to a piece of Legislation 933.02 that spelled out the Sewer rates outside the city limits would be 1¼ % outside the city limits.  Actually we want all the sewer rates outside the city to be 1 ½ times the normal rate, so we are amending that.  We took the one sentence out.  It is very simple and we want to keep it that way.  I am asking for emergency passage tonight so we can get that on the billing.  The new rate went into effect on March 1stRichard Myser:  All we really did was strike that one sentence.  Jim Zucal:  The rates are in effect until 2022, we are not changing the rates.

Also on the utility side I would like to mention to Council that our Water/Wastewater Superintendent Kendal Weisand who has been with us for 14 months resigned to take another position closer to home.  I talked to him today, he thanks the city.  He enjoyed his time her he just wants to be closer to home.

I just want to remind Council that tomorrow at 6:45 p.m. in Council Chambers.  We will be holding a work session.  Cindi and I have been working very diligently on this meeting with the Mayor.  We are putting together all the financials for the water and sewer with revenue, debt, and cost, everything we have to share with Council.  We really want to educate ourselves.  We will take questions.

Frank Sabatino:  Is there money in the budget for road paving this year?  Jim Zucal:  We are talking about paving.  We already have a preliminary paving list together.  We are still waiting on the license plate money from the County.  Paving is one of my favorite things to do, I think it is good for the community, and we are waiting for some nice weather.  I will be asking for input from Council.  We should have a final list together by April.

Mayor, Terry Pugh:

The weather has been a problem and in the last week we saw it all again from the winds knocking out some of the electric, some water leaks and then snow and ice.  I just want to commend all of the city employees for getting out there and really taking care of the different issues they had to face for St. Clairsville.  Of course Don Smithberger is responsible for all of the departments.  He is here all the time overseeing all the problems for the city.  He really needs to be commended.

The next thing I want to mention, I handed out some information to Council just to keep you up to date.  I want to thank Channel 9 for the article they did with me about 911.  As of April 1st we will have an answering service to handle our utility calls on off hours.  I think it is fair to say 911 was overwhelmed.  They thought they could handle it but when we had the power outage they just had more than they could handle.  You call the regular utility number on off hours.

The other thing that came out of the 911 meeting was pushing code red.  We are asking all of the residents to sign up for code red.  If we do have an outage we will be able to use code red to signal out the area and say we are aware of the power outage and hope that the power will be back on in so much time.  That is going to be a big help to notify our citizens of our problems.

The next thing is we got a letter from the J.B. Green Team thanking us for hauling in gravel because it was a muddy mess.  In the letter they pointed out that in 2018 they collected 195 tons of paper and cardboard from our recycling program along with the other materials that were collected.  They commended the St. Clairsville community for their great effort in recycling.

The last thing is I have provided a copy of the letter from Volunteer Energy.  This is something that has been in existence since 2010.  It was voted in by the Citizens of St. Clairsville.  It is a gas aggregation program.  Everyone in the city is enrolled in the program unless they opt out.  They are sending letters to everyone in St. Clairsville.  I gave you a copy of the letter so you have the information in case any citizens ask you about it.

Police Lieutenant, Mike Troulos:  No Report

Finance Director, Cindi Henry:

I am passing out packets that I made up for tomorrow’s work session.  It has various items in it.  You can take it home to look it over and bring it back tomorrow.

Planning & Zoning Administrator, Tom Murphy: 

The Planning Commission met this evening.  They approved the final site plan for the Changes Family Hair Salon at 243 West Main Street.  There is no action required by Council.  They still have to get their State approval but they are done with the City.

There is a Board of Zoning Appeals meeting on Thursday, March 7th at 6:00 p.m.   There are two items on the agenda.  One is a Special Exception request from the Community Improvement Corporation of Belmont County.  The request is for 133 Woodrow Avenue.  The second request is by Thoburn United Methodist Church at 209 E. Main Street.  They would like to add additional signage to what they already have.

There is some good news for Pizza Milano. You may have seen a dumpster at the new location across from the Marathon gas station.  They were doing some internal demo last week and they hope to get started on the project within the next month.  They hope to be done by the end of the year if not sooner.

The census is coming in 2020.  You might recall that last year I updated our addresses.  This year I updated any boundary adjustments that we have had over the last year or so or any mistakes that they may have had in the system just to make our corporate lines as legal as we can.

COUNCIL COMMITTEES:

Finance, Mike Smith:  No Report

Utilities, Frank Sabatino:

The utility committee met tonight.  We talked about tonight’s ordinance.  We also talked about Kendal leaving.  We thanked him for his service.  Donnie & Anita were in attendance at the utility meeting.  Don Smithberger:  First of all I would really like to thank our constituents for their patience and understanding.  The outage on Sunday was not due to the city it was due to the wind.  There was a large pine tree that came down between the Roundhouse on Route 40 and our substation, it shorted out AEP’s line.  We found the problem, called AEP and dispatched crews out to try to get it on as fast as they could but unfortunately it knocked out the power to us and about 15 other stations for AEP.  It took that long period of time to get the power back on.  Along with that was the high winds.  I want to remind everyone that with winds at 35 miles per hour we cannot get the buckets because there is a good chance that it would upset them.  The winds that day were 60 miles per hour and better.  We tried to do the best we could and again we thank everyone for their patience.

Police, Mark Bukmir: No Report

Street North Side, Jim Velas:

Questions about pot holes again and when they are going to get paved.  The only thing I told them that would be addressed as soon as the weather gets a little better and we find out how much money we have to pave the streets.

Street South Side, Beth Oprisch: I will echo what Jim just said.

Safety, Jim Velas:

There will be a safety meeting later in the month, we don’t have an exact date yet.  I am sure there will be a Council Meeting before that so we can let Council people know.  It is kind of interesting, it would be good if more Council people attended.  I also want to complement the city crews for their handling of the snow yesterday.  The morning commute was very good today.  Don Smithberger:  Again we have to thank all the crews Police Department included.

Building and Grounds: Perry Basile:

I went over to see the building that Jim Zucal was talking about over by the Rec. Center.  I also am on the track again of the old Train Depot.  I made some more connections.  I am gathering information and we will see what we can do with it.

Planning Commission: Mike Smith:  No Report

Fire District, Frank Sabatino:

The next meeting will be Wednesday, March 20th at 3:00 at the Main Station

Recreation, Linda Jordan:

The next meeting will be Monday, April 18th at 4:30

Park District, Linda Jordan:  No Report 

Law Director, Richard Myser:

We have two pieces of legislation to come before Council for the third reading they are Ordinance No. 2019-04 and 2019-05.  This is their third reading and they are up for passage.  The third Ordinance comes up for reading for the first time tonight.  As the Service Director reported it is only to amend an Ordinance that was passed last year.  It deals with the sewer rates that went into effect March 1st and we discovered that there was a sentence in this Ordinance that needed to be taken out.  Basically it is a housekeeping matter.  It is up for its first reading tonight and there is emergency language.  We are asking that you suspend the rules and pass it on emergency measure tonight.

No one has contacted me about going into Executive Session this evening.

There was presented and read to Council on its third and final reading by title only, ORDINANCE NO. 2019-04. AN ORDINANCE TO ESTABLISH THE CITY OF ST. CLAIRSVILLE BUILDING DEPARTMENT AND DECLARING AN EMERGENCY.  A motion was made by Perry Basile and seconded by Jim Velas that Ordinance No. 2019-04 be passed by Council. 

Roll Call Vote:

Basile                    Yes                        Sabatino                Yes             

Bukmir                  Yes                        Smith                    Yes

Jordan                   Yes                        Velas                     Yes

Oprisch                  Yes

Roll Call Vote:       Seven (7) Yes             Zero (0) No                  Motion Approved

Ordinance No. 2019-04 was declared adopted.

There was presented and read to Council on its third reading by title only, ORDINANCE NO. 2019-05. AN ORDINANCE AUTHORIZING A REQUEST TO THE BOARD OF BUILDING STANDARDS TO CERTIFY THE CITY OF ST. CLAIRSVILLE TO EXERCISE ENFORCEMENT AUTHORITY IN ACCORDANCE WITH THE OHIO BASIC BUILDING CODE WITH THE CONDITIONS THAT THE MUSKINGUM COUNTY BUILDING DEPARTMENT PERFORM ALL INSPECTIONS AND AUTHORIZING AN AGREEMENT

FOR SUCH ENFORCEMENT BETWEEN THE CITY OF ST. CLAIRSVILLE AND MUSKINGUM COUNTY, OHIO AND DECLARING AN EMERGENCY.  A motion was made by Linda Jordan and seconded by Jim Velas that Ordinance No. 2019-05 we passed by Council.

Roll Call Vote:

Basile                    Yes                        Sabatino                Yes             

Bukmir                  Yes                        Smith                    Yes

Jordan                   Yes                        Velas                     Yes

Oprisch                  Yes

Roll Call Vote:       Seven (7) Yes             Zero (0) No                  Motion Approved

Ordinance No. 2019-05 was declared adopted.

There was presented and read to Council on its first reading by title only, ORDINANCE NO. 2019-06; AMENDING CODIFIED SECTION 933.02/.06 AS PREVIOUSLY AMENDED BY ORDINANCE 2018-04 TO ESTABLISH SEWER RATES EFFECTIVE AT THE EARLIEST DATE DETERMINED BY LAW AND DECLARING AN EMERGENCY.  Jim Velas moved that the rules requiring Ordinances and Resolutions to be read on three separate readings be suspended and declaring an emergency; Mark Bukmir seconded the motion.

Roll Call Vote:

Basile                     Yes                        Sabatino                Yes             

Bukmir                  Yes                        Smith                    Yes

Jordan                   Yes                        Velas                     Yes

Oprisch                  Yes

Roll Call Vote:       Seven (7) Yes             Zero (0) No                  Motion Approved

There was presented and read to Council on its third and final by title only, ORDINANCE NO. 2019-06. A motion was made by Linda Jordan and seconded by Perry Basile that Ordinance No. 2019-06 be passed by Council.

Roll Call Vote:

Basile                    Yes                        Sabatino                Yes             

Bukmir                  Yes                        Smith                    Yes

Jordan                   Yes                        Velas                     Yes

Oprisch                  Yes

Roll Call Vote:       Seven (7) Yes             Zero (0) No                  Motion Approved

The Next Council Meeting will be Monday, March 18, 2019 at 7:30 in Council Chambers.

There being no further business to come before Council a motion to adjourn was made by Mike Smith and second by Perry Basile.

March 4, 2019 Council Minutes