Youngstown City Council talks about using water funds for demolition program

October 20, 2015 at 12:05a.m.

Talks will include using water funds for demolition program

By ROBERT CONNELLY

YOUNGSTOWN

City council will work with Mayor John A. McNally to set a town hall meeting about using water funds to pay for home demolitions.

That was the consensus from a council-as-a-while committee meeting Monday afternoon that lasted about an hour. Council members talked about questions they had received about the program from residents.

Finance Director David Bozanich addressed eight questions from Councilwoman Annie Gillam, D-1st, to start the meeting. From there, council members exchanged ideas and answered questions, but many talked about the need for a town hall meeting to explain how the program would work.

There would be a 68 percent sanitary rate increase along with a resolution to reduce water rates by 30 percent Dec. 1. City officials have said that the rise in sanitary fees and the decrease in water rates would balance out for no increase to city residents – or just a few dollars extra.

Gillam argued that even an increase in water rates for senior citizens of $1 to $2 is a lot on a fixed income.

The city wants to increase sanitation rates from $14.75 a month to $24.75 by July 1, 2016. In a full year, that would generate $2.64 million that would be used to demolish about 250 vacant structures annually. To offset that $10 increase, the administration wants to cut water rates for city residents by 30 percent. That would reduce the average Youngstown water customer’s cost by about $9.

Councilman T.J. Rodgers, D-2nd, asked Bozanich how the program would be affected by lowering the increased sanitation rate by a dollar to $23.75. Bozanich said that would reduce the amount for demolitions by $200,000, for a total of about $2.4 million.

John R. Swierz, D-7th, said that the demolitions would be “providing better quality of life in the city.”

Bozanich then gave a strong statement on how the city is attempting to step in and tear down vacant homes and make an impact, whereas other communities in the past did not. He said the city did the same thing when it cleaned up old industrial sites for economic opportunities years ago.

He listed improvements to downtown, Salt Springs Road and the Covelli Centre.

“We could sit around like a bunch of other communities did – the Gary, Indianas, East St. Louis, East Clevelands of the world – and not do that. Because I’m telling you right now, none of those council places are having meetings like this tonight on how they solve the demolition problem,” Bozanich said.

“We’re sitting here as a group today because we’re a community [that] wants to survive – not the way those other communities looked at it.”