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Youngstown council considers increasing sewer rates by 9.8%
YOUNGSTOWN — City council will consider increasing sewer rates by 9.8 percent annually for five years, beginning Jan. 1, to help Youngstown comply with federal standards.
The city needs to raise about $150 million over 20 years to comply with guidelines in the federal Clean Water Act related to its treatment of wastewater.
The city is required by the U.S. Environmental Protection Agency to build catch basins to help stop overflows of sewage into homes during heavy storms.
Malcolm Pirnie, an Akron-based consulting firm hired by the city to evaluate how to fund the federal mandates, had recommended a 12.9 percent annual increase in sewer fees to cover those costs.
But city council wanted the increase to be less.
“Council’s marching orders were to keep it below 10 percent, and we’ll do what we can to accommodate that,” said city Finance Director David Bozanich. “We’re going to work diligently to cut [sewer] costs and do what we can to get what needs to be done.”
City administrators will watch revenue numbers from the proposed 9.8 percent increase and are willing to re-evaluate that amount if it’s not enough, Bozanich said.
“We’ll do our best to make sure these rates don’t move over the five-year period,” he said. The last increase took affect Oct. 1, 2002.
About 63 percent of the city’s sewage-system customers live in Youngstown. The others are in surrounding communities.
Council will consider the proposal at a meeting today.
Also at today’s meeting, council will approve legislation to sell Fire Station No. 7 at 145 Madison Ave. for $1 million to US Campus Suites, which is building The Flats at Wick student-housing complex. The company plans to use that fire-station property for an expansion that’s at least three years away.
On Tuesday, the board of control signed the purchase agreement to sell the firehouse, pending council’s approval.
Council also will consider legislation today permitting the board of control to enter into two consulting agreements — one to develop and implement a rental-property registration program and the other to identify properties eligible for the city to acquire and improve as required as part of a $2.7 million federal Neighborhood Stabilization Program grant Youngstown obtained last year.
Both consulting deals would use NSP funds.
The first proposal is to hire Maureen O’Neill for $40,050 to develop and implement a rental- property registration program, retroactive to Oct. 1 and running through March 31, 2011.
O’Neill would oversee the program that requires rental-property owners to pay fees of $15 and $20 per unit, depending on how many rental properties a landlord owns, to the city. The fees would pay for the city to hire inspectors to check each of the nearly 6,000 rental units for safety and health issues.
O’Neill, a real-estate agent, served on the city’s housing-review task force and was instrumental in developing the rental-registration policy, said Bill D’Avignon, head of Youngstown’s community development agency.
O’Neill is also the wife of Anthony Farris, the city’s deputy law director. Farris said the city law department consulted with the Ohio Ethics Commission and determined there is no conflict of interest in hiring his wife.
Council also will consider an ordinance to spend up to $30,000 to pay Robert Weily, a Realtor, to identify properties the city could purchase, rehabilitate and sell. As part of the NSP grant, the city is required to find such properties.
Weily’s contract is also retroactive to Oct. 1 and lasts for one year.
skolnick@vindy.com