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Youngstown council signs two contracts with a law firm to serve as city’s collection agency
YOUNGSTOWN
City council agreed to let the board of control sign two contracts with the same law firm to serve as Youngstown’s collection agency.
The first contract is for $60,000 a year for Millstone and Kannensohn of Liberty to handle all notices and collections of money related to grass-cutting, lot cleanups and boarding building services done by the city.
The other would pay the firm 30 percent of whatever Millstone collects on delinquent accounts for unpaid water bills, demolition expenses, property maintenance code violations and administrative policies.
Millstone handles demolition collections for the city without a contract and had gone after delinquent water-bill payments in the past.
City council unanimously approved both proposals Wednesday.
Also, council voted to permit the board of control to pay $112,847 to Utility Contracting Co. of Youngstown for emergency repairs last fall when a sewer line collapsed. That caused a large sinkhole that closed Mahoning Avenue for 15 days.
Charles Shasho, deputy director of the city’s public-works department, called it “the infamous Mahoning Avenue sewer line.” Councilwoman Annie Gillam, D-1st, referred to it as “that disaster this past fall.”
The city closed the Frank Sinkwich Bridge on Mahoning Avenue between Glenwood and McKinley avenues Oct. 28, 2014, to make repairs after the sinkhole — about 25 feet across and 15 feet deep — developed. The work was finished Nov. 12, closing off one of the main streets on the city’s West Side for 15 days.
It also caused sewage backup in the basements of a dozen houses on nearby Whitney Avenue.
The total cost was about $236,000, Shasho said. The state is paying 80 percent of the cost through a grant.