Thursday, July 23, 2009

Council Meeting - Tuesday - 7/21/09

Council met in regular session Tuesday evening. All Council members were present except Rosie Goss & Randy Allmon. Also present was Mayor Joe Surace, Village Administrator Jim Saracco, Fiscal Officer Dale Davis & Village Solicitor Andy Beech.


For the Public Speaking portion Center Street resident Mary Bucher said WFD Chief Smith has been in touch with her and they are well on their way to resolving any questions she has put forth at previous meetings.


Lincoln Avenue resident Marlene Corbisello addressed Council in regards to a neighboring property she considers unkempt. Village Administrator Jim Saracco advised the property has been inspected by the CC Health Dept. The accumulated stuff around the fence is considered trash - not garbage - and is not considered a health risk. The Mayor advised a junk car has already been removed and that he has inspected the garage. He stated there is not a lot of garbage in there. Most of the contents in there would not be considered junk. However, the owner said he will be getting a dumpster to clean up the rest of the stuff. Corbisello then went on advising she is concerned about "the cats having a party going in and out of broken windows" on the house.


Broadway resident Dawn Johnson announced the defunct Broadway Tree Committee will be holding a dedication ceremony for all those that donated and contributed to the Broadway beautification project. It is to be held Saturday, August 8, at noon and will probably be in the area of 7th Street & Broadway. According to the newspapers there will be food & music. The public is invited. Ohio Dept. of Natural Resources Director Sean Logan will be present. Johnson further stated this is scheduled for the week-end of the Italian Festival to facilitate folks that may not normally be in town.


There were no Administration Reports.

For Committee Reports Finance Committee Chairman Tony Cataldo's motion to accept the budget for 2010 was approved. The budget shows a beginning balance of slightly over $975,126 and an ending balance of $1,091,475. Only the General Fund shows a deficit of $55,505.72 and the Fire Levy Fund shows a deficit of $174.14. All other funds are predicted to end with a positive balance. Cataldo stated after the meeting that the figures on this preliminary budget will be revised many times. Fiscal Officer Davis was quoted in the papers as saying "the premise is you'll spend every cent and that doesn't happen".

Also approved was Cataldo's motion authorizing the Fiscal Officer to proceed to finalize a $275,000 loan from Central Federal. The loan is to reimburse various funds were money was borrowed to finance the 2007 Village Hall roof repair.

Cataldo also announced he will be calling a Finance Committee meeting for some time next week.

For the Street Committee Chairman Joe Soldano said they are working on a list for streets to be repaved. Soldano noted that hopefully some will get done this year but it will probably be next spring.

For Water, Sewer & Refuse Committee member Tony Cataldo's motion to apply for a grant for up to $200,000 from the USDA Rural Development was passed. The grant is for sewer catch basin replacements and some paving. If the grant is rewarded the paving schedule is for the following: Main from 17th to 18th Street where the one side is sinking in, 16th St. from Main to Clark, 18th St. from Clark to Chester, Maple St. from 15th to 18th, Aten from Commerce to Clark, Center from 9th to 15th, 11th from Main to Commerce, 14th from Commerce to Chester and Chester from 15th to 17th.

They plan to use Issue II money next year to repave Commerce from 9th to 15th.

Also, after the meeting Cataldo advised that Tuesday morning the Ohio Public Works advised Village officials that up to $70,000 will be available to repair 10th St. Extension up near the cemetery. That would be to improve the hillside drainage and to repave. OPW wanted to know what the Village could pay as their share and they advised the village could go up to $10,000. At this time it is unknown if this will be a loan or a grant and they are waiting for an OPW response about the share portion.

The final Cataldo motion approved by Council was a Sewage flat rate increase for the next five years. The money received from this increase will be put into the Capitol Improvement fund. The increase is $1/month for the first year and 50 cents/month the next four years. That will amount to a $12 increase on sewage bills for the first year. The increase is to take effect January 1, 2010.

There were no other Committee Reports.


For the Mayor's Report Surace got Council's approval to upgrade WPD Officer Tyler Holland from the Reserve ranks to Part-Time status. Holland is a canine officer with the Norfolk Southern Railroad.


Surace also announced he will ask Council's approval for the new members of the Tree Board at the next regular meeting. He had hoped to have that ready for this meeting but was unable to do so.

There was no new legislation or new business. The next meeting is scheduled for August 4 at 6 P.M. at Village Hall. This will be the only Council Meeting for the month of August.

ole nib

7 comments:

pressdog said...

Seems like I read this , almost word for word....albeit a few adjectives and maybe an extra sentence here and there , in the East Liverpool Review.

The Riverside Reunion article ; Legends of Wellsville ; now that was "word for word" what I read in The Review , to which credit was given to the author.

Anonymous said...

I should probably know this but...
do council members get paid if they donot attend council meetings ? Are they paid if they are excused ? What is the pay per meeting ? Thanks........

************* said...

Pressdog - When you cover the same meetings the information you take notes on are going to resemble each other. It's similar but it is not word for word. The different subjects should be the same if you're reporting on the same event.

When you're standing shoulder-to-shoulder both getting information from the same person such as the Legends it will be very close. It's bound to happen.

If you're accusing anyone of plagiarism I strongly resent that. If I quote something from the newspaper I'll note it in what I write and most times use quotation marks. I can assure you that what appears on here is written solely by me and I don't write for anyone else. Also, I'm sure the same applies to anything that appears in the papers. Heck they don't even want to admit that there's bloggers out there.

I get the impression you're being antagonistic and trying to stir up trouble. You're wrong.

nib

************* said...

I don't know what the pay is but it's a small stipend. If their absence is excused by vote of Council they get paid.

nib

Anonymous said...

Council members are paid $200 a month, before taxes that is. Remember, there are meetings they attend, such as committee meetings during the month. They just recently voted to go down to one meeting a month during August and September.

get a life said...

Well, Presdog, apparently you didn't notice that the same story, verbatim, was in the Morning Journal...is that considered plagiarism? Of course not.
Joann Bobby writes the story for the MJ and it goes into the Review, too. Old Nib is at many of the same events.

Anonymous said...

Why the sudden interest in whether or not a council member is paid if absent? Please report how many meetings each council member has missed year to date, since this seems to be a hot issue. We would like to know the facts not hearsay.