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$850,000 for building upgrades awaits vote
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Sammarone
YOUNGSTOWN
In addition to considering charter amendments for the Nov. 8 ballot, city council also will vote on legislation today to spend about $850,000 on elevator improvements and window replacements at the city-owned 20 Federal Place office building.
The legislation comes after Mayor Charles Sammarone said he received a letter from VXI Global Solutions, a call center on the building’s fourth and fifth floors and its largest tenant.
The letter stated that as part of VXI’s agreement to open at the downtown building, at 20 W. Federal St., in 2009 and expand in 2010 that the city was required to make improvements to the building’s elevators and replace the windows on the company’s floors.
Although Mayor Charles Sammarone had planned to have work done on the elevators, he wasn’t aware of the city’s contractual obligation to do that work or the window replacements. Sammarone became mayor in August 2011, replacing Jay Williams, who resigned to join the Obama administration.
Sammarone said he asked other city officials, who were aware of the contractual obligations, and said he was told the work was supposed to be done already.
Council is having a special meeting today that starts immediately after its 5:15 p.m. finance committee meeting at city hall.
The cost of the improvements to three elevators at the former Phar-Mor Centre is estimated at $500,000 in the council ordinance, but Sammarone said the actual cost won’t be known until the city gets proposals.
Each elevator would be done separately and likely would take about four to five months to be repaired, the mayor said.
The window work is estimated in the ordinance to cost of $350,000, but the actual cost isn’t yet known. Also, a decision needs to be made on whether other windows at the building would be replaced, Sammarone said.
Sammarone said the city has saved money at the office building.
The city canceled a $75,000 annual management contract in December with DeVicchio and Associates. Instead, the city’s buildings and grounds department is managing 20 Federal Place.
The city made changes to a parking deal with VXI in October 2011 that reduced that cost by about $85,000 a year.
Council will vote on authorizing the board of control to advertise for proposals for the work for the elevators and windows.
Also today, council will vote on placing four of the 17 charter amendments proposed by a citizens committee on the Nov. 6 ballot.
All charter-amendment proposals must be to the Mahoning County Board of Elections by Aug. 8.
Council plans to support proposals to create a conflict-of-interest policy, and to change the starting and ending dates of daylight saving time, which the city already follows.
Also up for a council vote is eliminating term limits for the mayor, and a proposal to change the language on redistricting the city’s seven wards so they’d have similar populations.
The committee — consisting of 11 members selected by council members and Sammarone — wanted redistricting maps to be finalized no later than 90 days after each decennial federal census. The proposal being considered today by council calls for redistricting to be done after a “reasonable population change.” There is no language defining what a “reasonable population change” is.