Resolution introduced to move $1M state bond

The funds would go toward improvements at W.D. Packard Music Hall.
By PETER H. MILLIKEN
VINDICATOR TRUMBULL STAFF
WARREN -- City council introduced a resolution supporting transfer of a $1 million state bond from the Robins Theater restoration project to improvements at the city-owned W.D. Packard Music Hall.
The resolution calling the Robins' project "no longer viable" was given first reading just two weeks after the release of a feasibility study, which concluded it would cost $12.3 million to reopen the theater for performances.
The study also said it would cost $3.7 million just to do minimal renovation and restoration. The ornate, privately owned 1923-vintage film and vaudeville theater closed in 1974.
After the study's release, Mayor Michael O'Brien said the theater is in an advanced state of deterioration, and renovating and restoring it would be impractical for the city.
Council's proposed resolution is consistent with a legislative initiative by State Rep. Randy Law of Warren, R-64th, to have the money transferred from the Robins project to Packard Music Hall.
Council passed resolutions commemmorating the 50th anniversary of Packard and its resident W.D. Packard Concert Band, which will be Saturday.
Also on the agenda
In other action, council tabled an ordinance that would require installation of hard-wired smoke alarms on all floors of rental properties in the city beginning Jan. 1.
The ordinance's sponsor, Councilwoman Susan E. Hartman, D-7th, said she asked that it be tabled because she wanted more time to study the matter and that the measure likely would be re-introduced later this year.
Landlords had expressed concerns about alarm tampering that the ordinance didn't address, Hartman said.
A hard-wired smoke alarm is one that is directly wired to the building's electrical system. Typically, hard-wired smoke alarms also have battery backups to enable them to work during a power failure.
Pro and con
The Trumbull County Real Estate Investors' Association, which represents local landlords, has expressed opposition to the ordinance. Robert Kruppa, the group's president, has said that hard-wired systems are costly to install, and battery-operated smoke detectors offer more than adequate protection.
Fire Chief Ken Nussle, who supported the ordinance, said all the city's 19 fire fatalities in the last eight years occurred in places where smoke detectors didn't work because the batteries were missing or dead. All but two of those deaths were in rental properties, the chief told lawmakers.
Council gave second reading to an ordinance that would reduce the treatment rate from 3 cents a gallon to 7/10 of a cent per gallon for leachate that has been pre-treated to remove all hydrogen sulfide before it enters the city sewer system.
Leachate is water contaminated by the landfill's contents. Hydrogen sulfide is a flammable, corrosive and toxic gas with a rotten egg odor that emanates from putrefying matter.
The ordinance would substantially reduce the cost of the U.S. EPA's cleanup of the Warren Hills landfill, where 40 million to 60 million gallons of leachate is to be pre-treated on site before being discharged to the sanitary sewer. Warren Hills is a construction and demolition debris landfill that closed at the end of last year.