City council fixes appropriations timing issue, hears committee reports

Sarah Ein­se­len — Staff

By Sarah Einselen

Inquirer Reporter

Just one piece of leg­is­la­tion came before Galion city coun­cil at the reg­u­lar meet­ing Tues­day night, March 13. The ordi­nance, reduc­ing 2012 appro­pri­a­tions in sev­eral funds, was dis­cussed briefly before unan­i­mous passage.

The $934,000 reduc­tions, almost all from the elec­tric improve­ment fund, were a tim­ing issue, accord­ing to city man­ager Gene Toy. “Noth­ing is being added to or taken away from,” he said. It’s just the dif­fer­ence between pay­ing an invoice in 2011 and pay­ing it this year.

At-large coun­cil mem­ber Cathy George said two cit­i­zens had approached her on dif­fer­ent top­ics. One asked whether it would be pos­si­ble to remove the stop­light at South Boston Street and Hard­ing Way West, which George agreed to look into. The other, a prop­erty owner on Galion’s north side, had had a win­dow hit twice by the mys­tery BB-gun wielder or wield­ers. Coun­cil mem­bers informed the pub­lic that the police are gath­er­ing infor­ma­tion to stop the BB gun incidents.

George also said sev­eral low-interest loans and out­right grants were avail­able to fund a city energy audit or install more energy-efficient or “green” equip­ment like solar heat­ing and wind power.

Under com­mit­tee reports, finance com­mit­tee chair­man Roberta Wade reported that the data on city depart­men­tal elec­tric usage had been com­piled and encour­aged Toy to sub­mit it to Sawvel, the city’s elec­tric con­sul­tant, for fur­ther review.

Coun­cil pres­i­dent Gail Baldinger said it would behoove the city to also deter­mine the water and sewer usage of each city depart­ment before chang­ing elec­tric rates based on the analy­sis. He also thought Sawvel would prob­a­bly not be any more help than it already has been.

Toy agreed and sug­gested that he and city finance direc­tor Karen Wal­ters could take elec­tric, water and sewer data, com­bined with infor­ma­tion from Sawvel, and effec­tively present it to the finance com­mit­tee with­out hav­ing to pay Sawvel fur­ther con­sult­ing fees.

Wade agreed that the com­mit­tee would con­sider the elec­tric data and pos­si­bil­i­ties at a meet­ing at 9 a.m. Thurs­day, April 19.

The plan­ning, zon­ing and util­i­ties com­mit­tee will dis­cuss a zon­ing ordi­nance regard­ing tat­too par­lors at an upcom­ing com­mit­tee meet­ing. The alley vaca­tion on Atwood Street will pro­ceed to pub­lic hear­ing next. Com­mit­tee chair­man Tom Fell­ner will meet with Julie Fogle, pas­tor at First Pres­by­ter­ian Church, on March 14 to dis­cuss farm­ers mar­ket reg­u­la­tions that would affect a sum­mer farm­ers mar­ket held on that church’s property.

The parks and recre­ation com­mit­tee dis­cussed how to con­tinue man­ag­ing the East Park shel­ter cost-effectively. A local church is cur­rently using it free of charge each week to pro­vide free meals to res­i­dents around the park, but with the cost of util­i­ties and main­te­nance, the city can’t afford to do so indef­i­nitely. Van­dal­ism and bro­ken lights at the shel­ter add to the main­te­nance costs.

Nor­mal rental fees are $30 per use with a $25 deposit, refund­able after an event is over and the shel­ter has been left in sat­is­fac­tory condition.

“It’s kind of hard to let peo­ple use it for noth­ing if it costs so much to run it,” said com­mit­tee chair­man Ken Bod­kins. He will be meet­ing with the church to nego­ti­ate a compromise.

The laws and ordi­nances com­mit­tee met imme­di­ately after the coun­cil meet­ing to fur­ther dis­cuss an ordi­nance regard­ing con­trac­tor licens­ing and to take up two pre­vi­ously tabled ordi­nances. One of those pos­si­ble ordi­nances addressed how to track scrap metal when it’s turned in to local recy­cling ven­dors and the other addressed dis­tracted driving.

Dur­ing city manager’s com­ments, Toy said the Tay­lor Road com­post­ing facil­ity will return to its nor­mal sea­sonal oper­at­ing hours: every third Sat­ur­day from 7:30 a.m. to 2:30 p.m., and same hours on the day before. The facil­ity runs on a March through Novem­ber sea­sonal schedule.

The city has a let­ter of intent from Med­Flight regard­ing the lease of the house at the munic­i­pal air­port and will be nego­ti­at­ing the lease terms. Arrange­ments are also being made with the airport’s fuel ven­dor. City law direc­tor Reese Mills informed coun­cil that the air­port house annex­a­tion passed last month by coun­cil had been approved by the Rich­land County Com­mis­sion­ers this past Thursday.

All coun­cil mem­bers were present for the meet­ing. They will meet next on Tues­day, March 27, at 7 p.m. in coun­cil cham­bers. The pub­lic is encour­aged to attend.

Posted by Sarah Einselen on Mar 13 2012. You can follow any responses to this entry through the RSS Feed. Both comments and pings are currently closed.