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Agreement on building inspections may collapse
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Sammarone
YOUNGSTOWN
A proposal to have Mahoning County inspect buildings in the city may be in jeopardy with the two sides disagreeing on the cost and time frame of the deal.
On behalf of the county, Karen Markulin Gaglione, an assistant county prosecutor, sent an email to city Law Director Anthony Farris stating the cost of each inspection is increasing from $60 to $100.
During a recently expired three-month deal, the county was charging the city $60 an inspection.
“If I knew it was going to be $100, I would have never gotten involved in it,” Mayor Charles Sammarone said. “I would have said, ‘Forget it. We’ll get our own’” inspector.
Sammarone along with Farris and Charles Shasho, deputy director of the city’s public works department, said Tuesday that county officials never notified them about the increase until Monday’s email.
“In my years of dealing with the county, this doesn’t surprise me,” Sammarone said of the increase. “The work hasn’t changed. It’s the same work. They never mentioned $100.”
Also, city officials said the plan was a three-month tryout and then a one-year contract if the tryout was successful.
After that, Sammarone said, the city would negotiate to have the county take over Youngstown’s entire building department.
County Commissioner John McNally IV, who is considering a Youngstown mayoral bid next year, said the fee isn’t the issue.
What’s important is having the city sign a deal with the county to have the latter take over the work of the city’s building department, he said.
“Quite frankly, why do we need one year to consolidate these departments?” McNally said. “We can work any issues of fees out if we have a more definite idea of the consolidation.”
McNally also said, “I’m not quite sure if our recollections” about the proposed consolidation “are completely the same.”
Instead of one year, the county wanted the next contract to run until Dec. 31 of this year.
While the county initially agreed to do the work — inspect new construction and building improvement projects in the city — for $60, McNally said that figure “is on the very low end,” and “$100 might be a better amount. We felt $60 was a fair price initially. But if we go with $60, we want consolidation.”
In response, Sammarone said, “If that was on the low end and they thought of raising it, they never brought it up.”
Consolidation, and not the inspection fee, is the key issue, McNally said.
“Talks to consolidate shouldn’t take a year,” he said.
The fee could go back to $60, McNally said. The commissioners will discuss the price at their Thursday staff meeting, he said.
Also, if the county takes over the inspections, there “would be no fee” to the city, he said. The county would “take it off the city’s hands.”
City council was to consider an ordinance today to give the board of control authority to negotiate a one-year contract with the county.
The item likely will stay on council’s agenda and be up for a vote, but the board of control would approve only an extension with the county with the $60 fee for each inspection, Sammarone said.
Between March and May, the county inspected 96 properties in the city at a cost of $5,760. City officials estimate the cost of having a full-time inspector during those three months at $18,500.
But it isn’t accurate to compare the costs during such a small window of time, Shasho said.