June 17, 2019 Council Minutes
Once approved, a link to the official council minutes will be at the bottom.
COUNCIL MINUTES
June 17, 2019
St. Clairsville City Council met in Council Chambers on Monday, June 17, 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, Director of Public Services
Frank Sabatino, Council 2nd Ward Jeff Henry, Police Chief
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 June 3, 2019 meeting were distributed to Council. A motion was made by Jim Velas and seconded by Mike Smith to approve the June 3rd minutes.
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
Tom Murphy: You may remember last meeting I explained that Horizon would be placing fiber optic lines on different city poles. The locations are: Unified Bank (Plaza West), Belmont Savings Bank (West Main Street), ODOT Traffic Control Box (Corner of Route 40 and Mall Road), Unified Bank (Stewart Drive/Route 40) and Verizon Tower adjacent to Ashburn Greene. I wasn’t contacted by any Council Members for information. I have worked with Don Smithberger and Jason from Horizon for several months just to make sure that any route is acceptable to the city and to Horizon.
CITIZENS HEARING: Jason Hursey, Horizon Telecommunications.
I want to thank Mr. Murphy. What we are wanting to do is provide broad band service to the community. We have been doing so for many years. Most of the local clinics are actually connected to our service and now we are looking to expand to some of the banks. It is basically when they come to us we provide them service. Over all the whole construction process should be quick, maybe a week or less. Are there any questions? Perry Basile: Are you going to provide service for residents also? Jason Hursey: No not at this time, what we are mainly for is businesses. We are kind of steering clear of residential at this time. Frank Sabatino: I am sure your engineering department has checked but how much weight are you adding to the poles? Jason Hursey: These are very minimal, under a pound per pole. Everything we submit goes through the zoning. Tom Murphy: Donnie worked with Jason to make sure that any poles they were attaching to that belonged to the city there wasn’t any problem. You may recall from previous requests there is no ordinance or resolution required it is just a vote of City Council and we can do that now. A motion was made by Beth Oprisch and seconded by Perry Basile to accept Horizon’s proposal to put new lines on city poles.
Roll Call Vote:
Basile Yes Sabatino Yes
Bukmir Abstain Smith Yes
Jordan Yes Velas Yes
Oprisch Yes
Roll Call Vote: Six (6) Yes One (1) Abstain Zero (0) No Motion Approved
REPORTS:
Service Director, Jim Zucal
I want to thank Don Smithberger and all of our crews. This year the crews have done a fine job working downtown, on the biketrail and all the areas around town. I am working with Tom Murphy on various complaints around town. I want to thank Don Smithberger who is truly a good leader. Don has shared the comment that we have a truly great summer crew this year, maybe one of the best we have ever had. If you have any issues or concerns please contact me. I truly do appreciate their effort. We try to provide the best equipment, the best safety training that we can. I think that is all paying off.
Some of the projects we are wrapping up on are Tudor and St. Clair. We did have a rather large storm sewer project for the city. It is not completed yet but the pipe is in, the road is open and we do plan on at least paving a portion of that this year along with an area of Westminster where for decades there was always complaints about flooding when we had heavy rains. We have worked on that diligently, it has come out very nicely. It needs some patch work with asphalt but it is nice to know that we have people out there who stop us and say there are so many nice things going on so many projects. That is why I am here and that is what I want to do.
I want to ask Mr. Porter the Council President to see if Council is interested in having a work session to discuss the proposal from Aqua Ohio to the city for water and sewer. I have read through it so many times and we do have a Public Review Group the Mayor is working with. I think it would be prudent on our part to have a special meeting for maybe an hour to go over all of this. Beth Oprisch: That would be a public meeting as we discussed. The proposal is not confidential is that correct? Richard Myser: It could be a work session open to the public.
Beth Oprisch: The paving is going as scheduled? Jim Zucal: I talked to the contractor Shelly & Sands and we are going to execute the contract on Wednesday. With the rain they are behind but we have in the contract that they have to complete the work before school starts. They said it would be in July.
Mayor, Terry Pugh:
The Mayor read the Police report for May, The report is available in the Mayor’s Office.
I am going to have a grass court date in Mayor’s Court. Tom Murphy has been out working hard. If any of you know of any problems high weeds, debre that you see in your ward or anywhere in the city if you get back to Tom so we can get these people in and get ahead of the game. Beth Oprisch: any idea when that will be? Mayor: I would say the second week in July.
We are having our Community Day on June 29th. We have two major sponsors this year Riesbeck’s and Unified Bank. They are not going to have their festival this year so they are going to put their money into supporting Community Day for the City of St. Clairsville which I greatly appreciate. One of the things they are going to do is provide probably the longest best fireworks this city has probably ever seen. I want this in the paper because there are lots of people who have problems with pets especially people in the Wellington Woods area. We are really happy and appreciative but there might be a few pet owners who aren’t.
Another thing that I am very happy to report on is that we received notice that we received a $800,000 loan from the OPWC for a storm water project that has been a problem for people on Overbaugh and Bellview for 30 plus years. This money was from 2018 for other Municipalities and for whatever reason they didn’t follow through on their projects so there is money for our project. This project is long overdue and when it comes to storm water this is going to be another problem that we are going to face throughout the city. Beth Oprisch: This is a loan? Mayor: It is a zero percent loan for 30 years. Beth: As we were talking about the water and sewer our debt ratio was maxed out. If I understand that correctly we were not able to borrow any money. That is the reason we were selling the utilities. Mayor: This money we actually applied for and already have the engineering done. We applied for a $400,000 grant and a $400,000 loan. We got a loan and grant from this organization on the water tank. They came back and said there is no grant money available but we may have this money available would you want $800,000. Beth: So this would be a debt? Mayor: yes. Jim Zucal: Keep in mind this is OPWC so that is dedicated State funds. EPA funds come from the U.S. Department of Agriculture under revolving funds, they come from a different pool of funds. We have been working on this project since 2016. Cindi Henry: Initially we were told we could not borrow any more money but after I went to a conference and talked to the Auditor’s up there, we can borrow anything for water, sewer or electric because they are enterprise funds.
Police Chief, Jeff Henry: No Report.
Finance Director, Cindi Henry:
The budget hearing will be held at 7:00 on July 1st.
I gave you the GAAP report and the Auditors just finished last week so we will be getting the finished report on that soon.
Planning & Zoning Administrator, Tom Murphy:
There will be a Board of Zoning Appeals meeting this Thursday the 20th at 6:00 p.m. There is one item on the agenda the conditional use of a small parking lot behind Print N Copy in St. David’s Alley. Some of you might be familiar with the old structure that was demolished last year, it was called Blacksmith Studio.
There will be a Planning Commission meeting scheduled for July 1st. at 6:00 p.m. The tentative items on the agenda are the preliminary plans for St. Clair Commons. It is a concept plan a step they have to go through. The parking lot proposal has to go before the Planning Commission so it may be on the agenda as well.
COUNCIL COMMITTEES:
Finance, Mike Smith: No Report
Utilities, Frank Sabatino:
Don Smithberger: I would like to recognize Council and the Administration for all their help and support with trying to get everything done this year. The workforce this year is outstanding.
Police, Mark Bukmir: No Report
Street North Side, Jim Velas: No Report
Street South Side, Beth Oprisch: No Report
Safety, Jim Velas:
The Safety meeting will be June 27th at the City Garage at 9:00 a.m. the topic will be fork lift safety
Building Perry Basile: No Report
Planning Commission: Mike Smith: No Report
Fire District, Frank Sabatino:
The next meeting will be Tuesday, June 25th at 3:00 at the Main Station
Recreation, Linda Jordan:
Community Day, Saturday, June 29th starts at 4:00. There will be a bounce house, dunk tank, free snow cones, and free cotton candy. Cumberland Trail will once again doing their display. Lots of activities & vendors. The band will begin at 7:00 and they are called Sushi Roll (Oldies but Goodies)
Park District, Linda Jordan:
The Park District is doing very well. They have a really good crew that takes care of the grounds. The next Board Meeting will be Monday, June 24th
Law Director, Richard Myser:
We have three pieces of Legislation tonight to address. 2019-13, 2019-14 and 2019-15. They are all on their second reading.
The first piece of legislation is 2019-13, this is the Ordinance regarding amendments to the City Charter to be submitted to the electorate. In accordance with our city charter there is a Charter Committee, some of them are here tonight. They are commissioned to review and make recommendations for changes to the charter. It is Council’s job to say yea or nay to submit the ordinance to the electorate. The next one is 2019-14 is a resolution to increase the compensation of some of the city employees. The third piece of legislation is 2019-15. It is a resolution to make supplemental appropriations for the City.
There was presented and read to Council on its second reading by title only, ORDINANCE NO. 2019-13; AN ORDINANCE PROVIDING FOR THE ELECTION OF AMENDMENTS TO THE CITY CHARTER PURSUANT TO THE RECOMMENDATION OF THE CHARTER REVIEW COMMISSION AND DECLARING AN EMERGENCY.
There was presented and read to Council on its second reading by title only, RESOLUTION NO. 2019-14; A RESOLUTION AUTHORIZING THE CITY COUNCIL TO INCREASE THE YEARLY COMPENSATION OF SOME OF ITS EMPLOYEES AND DECLARING AN EMERGENCY. Linda Jordan moved that the rules requiring Ordinances and Resolutions to be read on three separate readings be suspended and declaring an emergency; Jim Velas 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 reading by title only, RESOLUTION NO. 2019-14. A Motion was made by Jim Velas and seconded by Mike Smith that Resolution No. 2019-14 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
Resolution No. 2019-14 was declared adopted.
There was presented and read to Council on its second reading by title only; RESOLUTION NO. 2019-15; AN RESOLUTION TO MAKE SUPPLEMENTAL APPROPRIATIONS WITHIN THE 2011 FUND FOR THE NORMAL EXPENSES AND OTHER EXPENDITURES OF THE CITY OF ST. CLAIRSVILLE, STATE OF OHIO, FOR THE PERIOD JANUARY 1, 2019 THROUGH DECEMBER 31, 2019, AND DECLARING AN EMERGENCY.
NEW BUSINESS:
The Mayor’s Collection for May was $4,576.68. A motion to approve the Mayor’s report was made by Perry Basile and seconded by Jim Velas.
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
Celebration of Bats, October 29, 2019, 4:00 p.m. to 6:30 p.m. St. Clairsville Bike Trail Gazebo. Belmont SWCD is asking permission to use the Biketrail for this event again this year. A motion to grant the permission was made by Perry Basile and seconded by Jim Velas.
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
Jim Zucal:
- Just to add to what the Mayor said about the Bellview project. This Fall I hope to come back to Council with legislation for the Bellview project.
- The water tank is progressing well at the St. Clair Commons.
- Later this year the old tank will be removed from behind the Municipal Building
- Today the Mayor, Don Smithberger, Tom Murphy and I met with four people from ODOT. Our goal in the years 2020 and 2021 we are going to secure funding to refurbish the tunnel to make it safer, to push back the erosion, look at paving, putting new boards on the trestle. It is going to be a major refurbish of the whole trail.
- In 2023 working with Bel-O-Mar our plan is to completely redo Thompson Avenue from High Street to Marietta
The Next Council Meeting will be Monday, July 1, 2019 at 7:30 in Council Chambers.
There being no further business to come before Council a motion to adjourn was made by Beth Oprisch and seconded by Mike Smith.