Hubbard safety director uncertain if appropriation will pass council

By Jeanne Starmack

The money in question is an insurance reimbursement for the police department.

HUBBARD — The city council’s finance committee will recommend appropriating $49,000 to the police department, and if the full council accepts the recommendation, four full-time dispatchers won’t be laid off.

But Safety Director Jan Bolchalk said she isn’t certain if the appropriation will pass.

She said that two council members indicated they are for passing it, while the rest appear “noncommittal.”

The finance committee met Saturday morning to discuss the appropriation, which Bolchalk said is insurance reimbursement for a lightning strike to the police station in September and an electrical fire there during the summer. The money has to be moved from the general fund to the police department. If it’s not, the department will run out of money before the end of the year.

Finance committee chairman Patton Gilliland had questions about the appropriation and had called the Saturday meeting. Council had decided not to vote on the appropriation at its Oct. 19 meeting, prompting Bolchalk to send layoff notices to the dispatchers.

She said she is required by the dispatchers’ union contract to give a 30-day notice in the event of layoffs.

The dispatchers are set to be laid off Nov. 23 and will not be called back until Jan. 1.

Bolchalk said council members who were at Saturday’s meeting could not agree on a time for an emergency meeting to consider the appropriation, so it will consider passing the appropriation as emergency legislation at its meeting Nov. 9. It needs 6 votes to pass as an emergency, she said. If it does not pass, council could try again at its regular meeting Nov. 16.

If it does not pass then, she said, the layoffs will occur.

Bolchalk said that if dispatchers are laid off, the police department will close to the public.

Prisoners will not be able to stay at the city jail, she said, and an officer will have to take about four hours away from his other duties to transport prisoners to the Trumbull County jail.

Either Liberty or the county would handle dispatching for Hubbard.