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Youngstown council rejects heating/cooling deal for more discussion
YOUNGSTOWN
City council voted down a $1.9 million contract with a company to heat and cool five city-owned buildings, but that doesn’t mean the plan is dead.
Council members say they want more time to evaluate the proposal from Brewer-Garrett Co. of Middleburg Heights as well as one from Youngstown Thermal, which currently provides heating to downtown city buildings.
In order to do so, council had to reject legislation Wednesday to go with Brewer-Garrett as it was in its third and final reading and would have been adopted if it received a majority vote.
The city administration is recommending Brewer-Garrett, but council members want more time before making a decision.
Brewer-Garrett wants to build a steam boiler plant at city hall and the attached police station. It also wants to convert the downtown fire station from steam to electric, make 20 Federal Place on West Federal Street all electric, and make modifications to the Covelli Centre’s lighting to make it more energy-efficient.
The city would pay the company more than $1.8 million for the work with Brewer-Garrett guaranteeing the municipality would save at least more than $3.2 million over 15 years. After the initial cost, the city would save $1,294,480 under the proposal.
Youngstown Thermal says its plan would reduce the city’s utility costs for the five buildings to $2.7 million a year.
The city paid slightly more than $4 million in utilities, including steam, electricity and natural gas, last year, according to the city’s finance department.
Also, council postponed a vote to give 119 nonunion members a 1 percent annual raise, effective Dec. 10.
Councilman T.J. Rodgers, D-3rd, chairman of the finance committee, said he wants an update on the city’s budget before making a decision on the raise.
All city union members received 1 percent raises this year. Most of those raises were in contracts approved by the city in 2014 and 2015.
The nonunion employees got the same raises for those two years, 1 percent and 1.5 percent, respectively, most union members were given.
But the city administration waited until Wednesday to propose the 1 percent raise for 2016 because the police patrol officers union contract, with the 1 percent raise for this year, wasn’t resolved until last month, said city Finance Director David Bozanich.