City council OKs action to repair West Side pool

Two councilmen argued over an increase to one of their city-funded travel budgets.
By DAVID SKOLNICK
CITY HALL REPORTER
YOUNGSTOWN -- City council approved emergency legislation to make repairs to Youngstown's only public pool and to increase the amount of grass-cutting on vacant and abandoned properties.
Borts Pool on the West Side closed Saturday because of problems with its filtration tanks that pump chlorine into the pool. On Wednesday, council authorized the board of control to do what is necessary to reopen the pool. The city plans to buy two replacement tanks, costing about $40,000 to $60,000, and have the pool reopen in about two weeks.
Council added $70,000 to the grass-cutting budget after receiving complaints about high grass. The program's budget was originally $30,000, and only $2,000 of that remains. Grass was cut on 650 lots, while there are about 8,000 vacant and abandoned properties in the city.
Councilman Mark Memmer, D-7th, said people who have high-grass issues in their neighborhood should call the city's high-grass hot line at (330) 742-8806 during normal business hours.
Travel budget
Also Wednesday, a request by Councilman Artis Gillam Sr., D-1st, to increase his travel budget by $8,000 led to an exchange of words between him and Councilman Paul Pancoe, D-6th, during and after the council finance committee meeting.
Council has a $25,000 travel budget evenly divided between the seven council members and the council president so each has $3,125. Gillam's proposal wouldn't take travel money from anyone, but would add $8,000 in general fund dollars to his travel budget.
Gillam's request to increase his travel budget by 256 percent and his reasoning that he goes to more "seminars than most council members do so I need the additional funding," angered Pancoe.
Gillam said he has used up nearly all of his $3,125 travel allocation, and is planning to attend the National Black Caucus of Local Elected Officials conference in St. Louis Aug. 9-12.
The travel request received approval from four of seven council members so it failed to pass by emergency. The request will get a second reading at council's next meeting, scheduled for Aug. 21, after the St. Louis conference.
Legislation is passed by emergency or after three readings at three separate meetings.
Besides the money, Pancoe said he was bothered that Gillam didn't tell him before Wednesday's meeting about his request.
"I'm not his rubber stamp or his whipping boy," Pancoe said after the council meeting.
Other business
Also Wednesday:
Pancoe's proposal to require those seeking elected city positions to have criminal-history checks before filing as candidates received a second reading.
Council authorized the board of control to give Select Medical Property Ventures a 37.5-percent, 10-year personal property tax abatement. The company is building a $16 million, 56-bed long-term acute-care facility on the North Side.
The company has a long-term care facility in St. Elizabeth Hospital, but new Medicare regulations require such facilities to be at least 750 feet from short-term acute-care hospitals by 2007 in some situations, such as this one.
The company is building the hospital on the block bounded by Park, Fifth, Ford avenues and Westbound Service Road. This is the first in-patient hospital built in Youngstown in decades.
Council voted to file an application with the state's Job Ready Sites Program for a $5 million grant to improve the Ross Industrial Park on Albert Street. The money for the park, owned by the Cafaro Co., would be used to upgrade the facility and attract manufacturing operations there.
skolnick@vindy.com