SHENANGO VALLEY Sharon wants residents to give input on merging with Farrell

Council still wants to meet with Farrell officials to further discuss the issue.
By HAROLD GWIN
VINDICATOR SHARON BUREAU
SHARON, Pa. -- City council wants to know how Sharon residents feel about consolidating governments with Farrell before it commits to drafting a home-rule charter to govern the new municipality that would be formed.
Council tabled a motion Wednesday calling for Sharon and Farrell to jointly create a nine-member home-rule charter drafting committee that would be assigned the task of coming up with a recommendation for how a new joint government would work.
Farrell City Council rejected the same motion in a 3-3 tie vote at its meeting Monday.
Farrell officials said they want to see where Sharon stands on the issue before they make a commitment.
After the tabling vote in Sharon, Fred Hoffman, Sharon council president, said the city will send Farrell mayor and council a letter asking for a meeting to assess what interest there is in pursuing the consolidation issue.
No others involved
There will be no third parties involved in that meeting, Hoffman said, referring to the involvement of James DeCapua, executive director of the Mercer County Regional Council of Governments, who was the driving force in opening consolidation talks between the two cities earlier this year.
DeCapua came up with his own version of consolidating the two municipalities after a study committee spent four years looking at the possible consolidation of Sharon, Farrell, Hermitage, Wheatland and Sharpsville.
The only thing to come out of that study was a recommendation to look at more shared services as a way to control costs.
Sharon Councilman Bob Lucas made the motion to table the home-rule charter committee issue.
Lucas said he isn't against consolidation and believes all of the Shenango Valley should be one city, but he said he was reluctant to pursue the issue with Farrell without knowing where the people of Sharon stand.
Some sort of ballot question should be devised to ask their opinion, he added.
If opposed
If Sharon residents are opposed to any look at consolidation, it would be a waste of time to draft a home- rule charter, setting up a government plan and then presenting that package for voters in a referendum, he said.
Council members Christ Outrakis and Victor Heutsche agreed.
Heutsche said he also wasn't sure that the savings projected in DeCapua's new municipality model would hold up.
Councilman Darin Flower said he still wants a committee of both city councils and the mayors to look further at shared services.
Hoffman said his fear is that the two cities will be totally broke at some point if they remain on their own.
DeCapua, who attended the meeting, urged council to go ahead with creating a charter for voters to consider.
The public needs something to consider when asked if it favors consolidation, he said. People need to look at a proposal that offers them something, he said.
He said his plan offered a $1.7 million overall annual budget savings in a combined municipality that would allow Sharon to roll back its property taxes by 30 mills.
It also called for raising the wage tax and creating a fire service fee, however, rather than continuing to pay for fire protection out of the general fund budget.