Youngstown council will consider replacing its anti-begging law Wednesday


By David Skolnick

skolnick@vindy.com

YOUNGSTOWN

City council will consider legislation Wednesday to replace its anti-begging law, authorize the board of control to accept the former Bottom Dollar Food store on Glenwood Avenue as a gift and allow that board to pay a company to demolish and grade four Market Street properties damaged in a fire.

Council also has a series of proposals on Wednesday’s agenda to raise the residential sanitation fee to fund demolitions and reduce in-city water rates, but a vote won’t happen at the meeting.

Council members said last week that they wanted more time – and possibly to convene a council committee meeting – before voting on those proposals. They include a 68-percent increase in residential sanitation fees to create an enterprise fund for demolitions and a 30-percent decrease in water rates for city residents to largely offset the sanitation increase.

Council is expected to vote on other proposals Wednesday.

One ordinance asks council to allow the board of control to accept the former Bottom Dollar property from ALDI Inc. The only cost is up to $5,000 in closing fees.

ALDI purchased the Bottom Dollar chain last year and isn’t converting any of the three locations in Youngstown into grocery stores. It leased a West Side location and owns another on the South Side that it may seek to sell.

The city particularly wanted the Glenwood Avenue location since it sold the land to Bottom Dollar for $14,000 in 2010. City officials plan to find a company to open a full-service grocery store there.

Council also will consider an ordinance to pay $60,000 to All Excavating of Youngstown for demolishing four structures – 2710, 2712, 2716 and 2720 Market St. – heavily damaged in an August fire in the city’s Uptown area.

Also on the agenda is a repeal of the city’s anti-begging law to be replaced by an improper-solicitation ordinance.

The city’s law director, Martin Hume, had police stop enforcing the anti-begging ordinance in June after the American Civil Liberties Union of Ohio informed him it was unconstitutional. Hume agreed with the ACLU’s assessment of the law.

Instead, the law department is recommending a proposal to restrict when and where a person can ask for money.

An ACLU attorney said the proposal is a “clear improvement” over the old law, but still raises “serious questions about its constitutionality.”

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