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Youngstown council raises, lowers fees
Members also voted to repeal pit bull ban
YOUNGSTOWN
City council approved raising the residential sanitation fee to fund demolition work while offsetting it with a cut in the water rate, but with some significant changes from the original proposal.
The initial plan was to increase the sanitation fee from $14.75 a month to $24.75 by July 1, with the first $5 increase starting Dec. 1, while reducing the monthly water rate for city residents by 30 percent – about $9 for the average city user. Also, 20 percent reductions were to be given to homeowners who are at least 65 years old or disabled and make less than $30,500 annually.
The plan adopted Wednesday keeps the same rate structure for sanitation, but reduces the water rate by a flat $10 per month. And the 20 percent reductions will also go to seniors and the disabled making less than $30,500 a year who rent. The rate changes will last for the next 10 years.
“Council had concerns from their constituents, and we’re fine with those changes,” said Mayor John A. McNally. “Now we can begin the process of putting the rates into effect. The end result is, we’ll collect $2.5 million to $2.6 million a year for environmental sanitation, more specifically for demolition of residential and commercial” structures.
Also Wednesday, council voted to repeal its pit bull ban passed eight years ago, but which is no longer enforced.
That move came after Jason Cooke, a local animal- rights activist, asked council to overturn the law. Council members said they received emails and telephone calls from people supporting and opposing the ban.
Council also agreed to give the board of control the authority to use $500,000 in wastewater funds to remove asbestos and demolish the rest of the former Wick Avenue car-dealership properties, once called the Wick Six.
The city is facing an $88,000 fine from the Ohio Environmental Protection Agency for emission violations at its wastewater treatment plant. It came to an agreement with the EPA to not pay the fine and spend up to $500,000 on this project, said Law Director Martin Hume.
The violations were for failing to conduct timely emissions tests at its Poland Avenue wastewater plant, and for emitting higher-than-permitted pollution from the burning of human waste and other waste at that location and releasing them into the air through its smokestacks.
The city will stop incinerating waste at the plant in about six months as it cannot abide by EPA air-quality regulations, said Charles Shasho, deputy director of the public works department.
Instead, the city will seek proposals from companies to ship the dried waste out of the plant, he said.
Also, council voted to have the board of control borrow $2 million with no interest from the Ohio Pubic Works Commission to upgrade the wastewater plant’s electrical system.
It’s the first major project the city will start related to its $147 million consent degree with the U.S. EPA to upgrade its wastewater system by 2033.