County Council - Special Meeting

I'd like to call today's special meeting to order, September 15th, 2026. Would you please stand for the convention?

I pledge allegiance to the flag of the United States of America, and to the republic for which it stands, one nation, under God, indivisible, with liberty and justice for all.

This is another one for children that was on my calendar the other day. Children are likely to live up to whatever you believe of them. Thank you. Roll call. Mr. Bale. Here. Mr. Copeland. Here. Mr. Dressel.

Here. Mrs. Showerman.

Here.

Mr. Wirtz.

Here.

Mr. Winarski.

Here.

Chairman Skotella.

Here. Hearing of the public.

My name is Freda Tepper and I live in Erie, Pennsylvania. And as Karen Chilcott mentioned at the last meeting, it's National Voter Registration Day. So I encourage everybody to go online to the VA Commonwealth site. Make sure you're going to the department of the Commonwealth of Pennsylvania, the PAvote.gov, I believe, is the site, not any other site, and check your voter registration. Check that it's correct. Check that the address is correct, that it's current. Check that the address, if you're going to get a mail-in ballot, check that the mail-in ballot address is current and you're going to be there because they don't forward mail-in ballots. And also, I want to encourage people who do fill out mail-in ballots to sign your ballot envelope. Not your husband's, not your wife's, not your son's or your daughter's, but your envelope. It's surprising how many people sign somebody else's envelope. And make sure to put the secrecy envelope in with the ballot. I also want to encourage County Council to complete the process of hiring the directives for the Human Relations Commission. There are so many reasons why it is vital for us to have a fully functional Human Relations Commission right now. I'm very concerned about the ability of our populations that have disabilities to receive equal treatment in our community. and for all the other covered classes to receive equal treatment. And I hope that the process of hiring a good human relations commission director can happen as soon as possible. Thank you.

Thank you. Is there anybody else that would like to speak? Is there anybody else that would like to speak? Thank you. New business.

ordinance number first read of ordinance number blank 2026 blank 2026 general fund budget supplemental appropriation of five million dollars for transfer to capital reserve fund for non-bond bond issue capital projects mr chair mr colt uh ahead of us making a motion and going into our discussion the week which uh

for an opportunity for the executive and staff to explain the reasoning for general emphasis, and then we can have our discussion as to separate questions.

So first of all, thank you for agreeing to a special meeting. You recall early on, we talked about, so there's really two requests tonight.

We talked about the need to create a dedicated capital fund early on.

because of what we viewed as a lot of deferred maintenance that needed caught up on. It's here now. We have an urgent request tonight to approve funding for our elevators. They're not working.

There are certain days we don't have any of them functioning. Today we had one functioning. However, I think it's down again.

Part of that request of 5 million is to allow maintenance to begin tomorrow. The process of getting this ordered, it's going to take time before they're even available, but we need to move on this. As of today, we did have elevator three working. However, I now believe it's down again. We had two different technicians here today looking at this from two different companies. What we're finding is it's very difficult to find technicians that even know how to work on these because they're so old, and it's very difficult to get parts. These units are from the 70s, and they've had so many band-aids and patches put on them over the years that we've hit a point where they need to be replaced. And it's really for the safety of users in those lands. So that is one component of the overall structure of creating a capital reserve fund. We talked about that before we even had the urgent need right now that we've got to start planning these larger ticket items that need to be dealt with. You can only kick the can down the road for so long with deferred maintenance. So we want to create that dedicated capital fund. We've also been told by our bond raters, Standard & Poor's and Moody's, that it's not appropriate for us to not have a capital fund. It is a government accounting standard to have one, and we don't. And so we want to create the tool which will then enable us to plan repairs in the future. And so with the $5 million, we're hoping to be able to to the elevators and also begin the planning stages for the roof replacement on the library. That is the original roof from 1995. It's 31 years old. It is currently leaking. It's been patched many times. It is leaking. And whenever you have leaks, you tend to have issues become worse over time. We don't want to have to deal with mold and other secondary issues. That is our request to be able to move forward with creating fun and starting these two projects.

Thank you.

Yeah, I just thought we have with the courts, and I just want to echo what Chris said. I've been around a long time, and I always felt that the current system that we're operating under never really worked. It didn't work for the courts in general. It didn't work this if you are guilty but you know we need maintenance done in courtrooms we need stuff every year for improvements and probably the most meaningful is core security equipment cameras and all kinds of different things if you work with the sheriff's department the current system is we have to go and kind of talk to Brad the maintenance guy and see what's available and he's only got X amount of money in his entire does end and where priorities are and where they aren't. There's no plan. There's no system. We don't know what's available, what's not available, what we can count on, what we can rely on. So the concept of a capital improvements budget is very, very important. And the way we've been operating really has been, you know, it's just sort of been hodgepodge. If we tell everybody three years from now, we're going to need to repair the 25-year-old carpet in courtroom, you know, see, it's not like that money gets set aside for that to count on. Just people will go, okay, we got some carpet down. So a long-winded way, I think, of saying, you know, I can't tell you the number of emails I wrote to the prior administration about the problems with the courts and the elevators.

And Liz came to the hospital. She's going to need a dental surgery.

She had a concussion.

She couldn't testify.

We struggle every day trying to get jurors up, elderly individuals with canes. And, of course, all the jurors for this are advised with respect to the ADA liabilities that we have as a whole, not being able to comply with any of those things. We had a week-long homicide trial that was very expensive. It was a cold case trial. because the sheriff's transport elevator We were able to talk to the jurors. John was able to make sure we understood there wasn't going to be any large concern. be able to rely on just the basic fundamental use of the building. So again, like always, I'm always willing to talk to anybody if they want to retract down outside of this. The judges, one more thing that I promise I'll shut up. The judges come to me almost on any other basis, say, Bob, what is happening with the obligators? Why don't we get gun readers? I wrote a long email to the current administration last week. years down the road. So it's time. I don't know what else we have to wait for.

What are the costs for these two projects? What is the elevator going to cost you?

So the most current estimate is from July of this year. 2.2 million, 2.18 million for all five. That does not include any other mechanical, electrical, or general contracted work. Those are just the units. So there's going to be other work involved with that. They can't put a price on it until the year. to know for sure. This is replacing all five. So there'll be modern, there'll be parts that are available and people that want to work on them. We initially discussed only replacing some of them, but it still creates a safety issue because if you have one that you think is working and it drops to floors and somebody gets hurt, it's just time. They're all well past their lifespan. And for the library roof, this came in just today, $1.56 million.

So combined, $5 million is going to seep that point down to about $500,000, right? It'll most likely. Pretty close.

Yeah. Now, these are by far the two biggest things on the horizon that we see. We've got got normal upkeep things we have to do here and there in a parking lot fixing windows nothing that rises to this dollar level these are the two biggest things that have been hanging out there uh obviously one is a current safety issue the other one is expensive deferred maintenance the longer you have water coming in and there's going to be a lot of other issues so so in the future

If you have $500,000 in there, are you coming to us every time you want to use money?

Ideally, what I would like to get to, I would like to get to the point where we have at least a three-year forward-looking plan. Where we say to you, let's say we already have this. I would have said to you in 2027, we're going to tackle this. In 2028, we'd like to tackle this piece. In 2029, we would have an estimated amount that we would need to transfer it to the capital fund, that we would be coming down to you at time of budget and saying, okay, in 2028, for example, we want to do $2 million in improvement or $1.5 million, whatever that is, based on feedback from everybody. Prison needs this. Library needs that. We're going to present to you at that time a schedule that hopefully we can agree on that says something year after and spread that out so that in each year maybe we can tackle a company because when it builds up to this point where it's just a huge number that's what we want to avoid so if we can do a if we can do something every year we hopefully don't have you know we don't hit the wall so even with the well i guess the point of doing that stuff even if we agree upon a list

a certain dollar amount and it's a contract, you're bringing that to us, right? We're not just giving you a slush fund that you can spend from a free will. You're still coming. You're bringing us contracts and budgets, right?

Well, yeah. Again, the way I envision it is every year during budget time, we're going to say, okay, here's what we think needs to be replaced in 2028. Here's what we want to schedule in 2029. You're going to best guess that it's hard to nail that

No, I got that part. I think what I'm saying is let's say you got a project that comes up out of nowhere. It's an emergency. You need $100,000 or so coming to us to approve. You're going to see that. I just want to maintain some control over what's happening.

I really like that there's plan being put together to tackle some of these issues. It's a lot of what I talked about in the last budget in terms of making sure that we were taking care of our internal issues and aligns very well with a third advisor from bonus accounting, who's also talked about the need to capitalize a fund like this to take care of issues. So in spirit, I really appreciate that. In the packet that we were given, is the capital improvement plan which details how this would be capitalized in the future use that word wage payments talking about how we have to maintain the minimum of two months fund balance and then discusses that any amount exceeding the two-month general budget fund balance may be transferred to capital improvement reserve this looks like a draft policy that is not being instituted in any way by these two ordinances. And any of those transfers would require an ordinance of counsel, right? I think instituting this as a formal policy passed by resolution would be ideal so that in the future, the director of finance might bring us each year after the the audit process that we can determine what number gets recapitalized every year, you know, excess fund balance. But that is a little bit different than what you were talking about with the budget process in terms of the expenditure side, right? So I just would encourage us actually adopting a policy formally and then getting into the habit of Proceeding with the orders that accomplishes what this policy talks about so that we're constantly recapitalized that because that meant to me putting $5 million in the bank account only to spend it is a little bit. We want to build some fund balance there over time so that in four years, if there's another roof that was not accounted for, suddenly, oh my gosh, it's $4 million. We're just taking it from the general fund again. That doesn't accomplish anything. but like actually rigorously staying on task, which I think is important.

And Brock, kind of the way I envision that is that we can, which has never really been done in the past, you know, that, you know, we close the December cash basis statements and then general accounting goes through months of changing all those numbers based on accruals, money going back and forth, expenses in the right here, this, that, and the other thing. And then you get to the very end and you have a number. we'll sit there with that number, just say it's $2 million. Either you're going to have $2 million added to the fund balance or you're going to have $2 million taken away. That part of the draft, to me, I envision that when finance gets to that point and we know what that number is, then we come to council to do an ordinance to appropriate maybe a million to the capital projects for the capital reserve fund. or if that's not the feeling at the time, we add it to the fund balance. Those would be your two choices. I know you had talked to me about it last year when we got to the end and I had a certain fund balance number and arbitrarily decided to transfer so much to Pleasant Ridge without any input from anybody. That's always been the way it has been done upstairs since the dawn of time. There was never any input as to the ending amount that was just all handled in finance. So my suggestion is not just with this, this being the main portion of it, because that's what you'd want to fund, but if something like that comes up out again, towards the end of the audit, we should come down here and tell you guys, we're at this figure, what do you guys want to do with it? That's how I envision running it going forward.

I didn't mean to confuse it with the budget itself,

what needs fixed right mapping out a schedule for that um and i think it's going to be during the budget process right yeah what we're going to do is i've created the capital reserve fund if you guys pass it so that within the fund itself there's a department for every department that exists so there's a department for all the ports there's a department for the prothonotary so anybody that has a capital need you're going to see the budget come down 27 with our best guess of what to spend that year but as you know you know something could come up out of blue so you know you the elevators go all go down at one time um any changes to that will be very similar to the way it works now where i'll come down and create the line item for each project there's not going to be any just here's five million have at it It'll be just like it is now where we're going to come down and say, you know, or the windows need replaced and it's 200 grand. You guys will approve each one in the same similar fashion. Just the way it has always been in the past, you never knew. There has always been a capital projects fund statement, fund 85. Nobody's ever seen it. It sits up, you know, you don't get it in your statements. You don't know. This is going to have all that out there, transparent and rolling forward so we can actually see the items. Like Bob said, know what's available and what's like on the schedule.

Is this the same bucket that if there were to be a countywide assessment called for, but this would be in that bucket as well? For capital improvements. Have you given thought to Can you sort of stash away a little bit for that when it happens?

We know we're going to have to tackle that, frankly. Not yet. Like we've said from day one, separating operating expense from capital, to me, for day one, was a red flag. Now we're being forced to. not getting as cool grades. We can try to get a little proactive about these things.

So I'm actually like, as far as a reassessment, I'm still waiting to see what the state does in terms of if they are going to try to acquire one on a specific schedule. We have not. We've talked about it just very, very briefly. We have no plan currently about .

Well, it could come down to that. It could. somebody demanded school districts or whatever.

Well, in Crawford, the city, now, there's a different, there's this epidemic, but ours isn't that bad, but you're right. When someone could sue, that could try to force the issue. There's this thing.

I was just hoping the last several years we could go just a little bit towards a But I don't know if they'll cast legislation on it before we might have that problem.

Yeah. I actually am talking to Crawford and going to follow up what happens with them to see how much theirs is. I know they're looking at options and opportunities to do this. The longer the time frame, the higher the cost. Yeah.

work frequently so excuse me for my voice first of all what's going on but um i mean we're being asked to pass five million dollars and we always talked about a plan and you riled off some numbers of what you've seen but Where is the plan? Where are the estimates? We didn't see any of that. I'm supposed to come in here and make a decision. I want to fix the elevators. I get that. But what is the plan? We have one vendor that does this. We have multiple that we can deal with. I don't know, especially with something as specific as the elevators. I mean, that's probably an issue. And again, if we need to fix them, it's a safety, it's an emergency. I get that. But I mean, we would have crucified previous administrators not giving us i don't see anything financially give me a number but i don't have any of the documentation to back it up which we don't work like that two i think this plan good we did talk about during budget season last year but i think that's where it should be addressed i don't if we need to make repairs or replacements on the elevators fine we do that we need to take care of those issues we've had to do with boilers at the prison whatever but As far as the other stuff, it should be addressed in next year's budget. Shouldn't be coming weeks away from you handing us the budget. We should be doing this plan. Yeah, fine. But do it in next year's budget.

I didn't have anything else to add. I will note, I think that we

need to move both items a and b to a second for them to be potentially passed today it's i'll make that motion if it's relevant mr chair um some of the members concerns about jumping into this uh blindfolded or you know without sufficient PURPOSES AND RAMIFICATIONS OR PARAMETERS, I SHOULD SAY, OF WHAT THE ACCOUNT IS SUPPOSED TO DO. YOU KNOW, THE IDEA THAT YOU'D ESTABLISH A CAPITAL RESERVE ACCOUNT TO MEET THE NEEDS OF EVERY DEPARTMENT THROUGHOUT THE YEAR WHEN THEY SIMPLY NEED SOMETHING SUCH AS REPAIRS OR SOMETHING. THAT'S NOT WHAT A CAPITAL RESERVE ACCOUNT IS FOR. IT'S FOR, YOU KNOW, BIGGER PROJECTS. AND, YOU KNOW, FUNDING A CAPITAL RESERVE ACCOUNT IS A SMART IDEA, AND SETTING UP A CAPITAL RESERVE ACCOUNT IS A SMART IDEA. HOW YOU GO ABOUT FUNDING THAT, WHETHER YOU GIVE IT MONEY OR ASSIGN A PERCENTAGE OF WHAT'S LEFT OVER AT THE END OF THE BUDGET IS ONE WAY, OR EVEN COUNCIL JUST APPROPRIATING FUNDS TO SUPPLEMENT THE the reserve fund is another way. I don't know how you would do that or if council's even predisposed to wanna do that. But a lot of things regarding this account have not been discussed by council and questions will pop up as we go through this. But I definitely think that we need an ordinance that defines the purposes of the reserve account and how it is supposed to function. There are a couple amendments that we suggested here and I discussed with Pat. Number one, we're only dealing with the elevators. There's no ordinance in front of council to fund a roofing issue for the library. So it's limited to that. So that's two and a half million. There's still two and a half million left in it. But some of the questions by council with regard to the particular project. And that's why we decided to separate them because it's a separate issue altogether. Take, for example, the expenditure for the elevators. YOU KNOW, WE DON'T HAVE THAT INFORMATION AS FAR AS THE COSTS AND POTENTIAL CONTRACTS. WE DON'T, WE'RE NOT BEING ASKED TO WAIVE THE CODE WITH RESPECT TO BIG REQUIREMENTS AND THINGS LIKE THAT. AND OF COURSE, EVEN THOUGH THIS IS COMING OUT OF A CAPITAL RESERVE ACCOUNT, EACH TRANSACTION IS GOING TO REQUIRE SATISFACTION OF THE code and the purchasing code um and so with today's ordinance we'll have to waive the bidding requirements under the code for the contract for the elevators i have to make sure we do that um yes i don't think the administration has asked for that waiver

yeah i i just want to if i could question as to why you don't have specifics in front of you we're going to incur costs just getting to the point where we have an approved design and have somebody here right i mean we aren't going to start spending the money until you know you approve it and so for me to tell brad to start working on getting contractors here to give us estimates who have to come into town who are charging us money that's not in the budget right now. We're trying to come down and get the appropriation first. I won't have specifics on this project until we get the right experts here. And so I didn't think it was appropriate to start spending money that you haven't approved yet. And the second point of why are we doing this at budget time, the original plan was to do this at budget time, but we can't wait another four to six weeks. We have people tripping on the stairs. So that's why we're here today. But I just wanted to address that, you know, why you don't have specific information. You're going to get that when we get the number nailed down and we know specifically what we're looking at. I mean, all I have right now is one estimate. The time it would take to get people to come into Erie to look at this, to give us a thorough estimate. We don't have that. Well, I understand that's just the point. Right. I mean, I'm addressing questions that have come up before. We need to know that we have funding that you have approved or I can start having guys come to town and we start incurring expense before we even get to the point of ordering the elevator.

So what we're sitting here, if we pass or we have in front of us now, you can start tomorrow.

I'm going to text Brad or call him the minute I leave here and say, nationwide you start your search to get people to come to erie most likely they're going to be from out of town to get firm estimates and contracts and and then you're going to know as we go through this process where we stand but for me to tell him to start this without funding i don't think he would want that either we need to know that we have a dedicated capital fund that i can have brad work with Because like I said, there will be expense in just getting to the point where we have, where we can make poor.

Mr. Chair, actually you do have the money, you have it in the general fund. I mean, if there was no reserve fund, then you would come up to council with the supplemental appropriation, two and a half million for the contract. You know, when you use a reserve account, you have to, the administration will have to inform council far in advance of their, you know, their interest in a capital project. Some of them might be large, some small, but this is all happening at once. And that's fine. Council should respond. But in every other instance, council has the paperwork and it should always have the paperwork before it decides whether the contract is good or not and whether to get behind it and provide the funding. Um, even though we're setting up a reserve account, the funding is already there and you could have, and you still can go out and get that funding and then come back, uh, uh, either for a supplemental appropriation from the general fund or for, uh, paying an expenditure from the reserve account. Um, my understanding is that, and with this coming to light so quickly, um, and me experiencing myself a couple of issues involved in the elevator that you wanted to do it quickly. That's a good reason to waive the bid requirements because it's an emergency. And I think council should waive the bid requirements under these circumstances in order to get the contract going. It would take too long to process this I DO, THE POINT THAT I WANT TO MAKE, THOUGH, IS THAT THIS HAS TO BE FLUSHED OUT AND DISCUSSED AND A POLICY DEVELOPED AND ORDINANCE DEVELOPED IN ORDER TO DEFINE THE PARAMETERS OF THIS. AND THAT THIS IS NOT JUST WHERE, THIS IS JUST THE BEGINNING OF IT. I DID INSERT, AND I'M ASKING FOR AN AMENDMENT, ROCK WILL ASK FOR AN AMENDMENT, TO INSERT SOME LANGUAGE IN THERE THAT that ensures that council has to provide its consent and approval for any kind of project or funding whatsoever. But we have to do more than that as far as defining the limits of the fund and how we're gonna fund it and what purposes it's going to use. It shouldn't be used for every repair that comes up in the department on a year to year basis. It should be a substantial contract, a million or more. And again, the administration should, and these are issues that would go into the policy and the ordinance itself, provide counsel with sufficient advance notice of the project to be funded.

That's all.

trying to get to that this this written draft policy is very nice to see about the intentionality is that i would like to also in in the near future see the works that adopts this do we excuse me um where did you get that policy from um i looked at a few of the different county policies and um it was lancaster county's policy and then i adopted it and changed some of the figures and Like I said, draft. Just to have something in place because we had nothing at that point.

So, yeah. So I'm confused by what we have in front of us then because the second amended ordinance that we have is the creation of a capital fund that you're arguing is neatly detailed here but is a draft policy that is not this. Am I correct?

The draft policy was with the attachments for understanding of other capital funds should work, but that ordinance does not also adopt that as county policy.

No, it creates a fund that is thus undefined.

Right, which is kind of where I was coming from about the assessment thing, because if it's a capital reserve, then that's different from capital improvement, correct?

Right, and an assessment isn't a capital project at all. That's just a $12 million expense that wouldn't happen. And we would need a bond issue to pay for that. We'd have to go back for a bond. Capital is truly infrastructure and these big ticket items like you're looking at. In the past, you always approved the one-off projects like we're asking you to do now to approve the one-off project for the elevator um but in the past it was always put into a different fund that i don't know that everybody even knows exists there's a fund 80 with its own bank account and all this and that that fund currently exists for bond issue projects we've been mixing bond and non-bond issue projects for years in there that we shouldn't be doing. And in the past, until the very recent future, we always had leftover bond money. We still have leftover bond money from the airport runway. And we've used that money all the way up until now I think I'm sitting on about $800,000 of it left. And we have used to use that for bond related projects only, which you're going to see on finance on Thursday. This fund will allow you to do all the non-bond things so that you have perfect separation because obviously we know what the county has always done is they've accumulated all these projects until we got to $30 million worth of stuff that needed done and went out and got a bond. Currently the county is in a position where We would rather not go out and get a bond and pay money for a bond when we're sitting on $28 million excess fund balance. So it's basically taking our fund balance instead of getting a bond and moving it just into the reserve fund. The reserve fund will only be used and can only be used for major capital projects, elevators, roofs, things like that. But every time there is one, we'll come down and ask you guys, or we'll try our best in the budget to guess what they might be for that year. As far as the second or third ordinance that you approve, I fully intend that after, it's like Chris said, we need the appropriation to get started. We want to know that we have something. I think the intention is then to go out, do the full process, RFP, the bids, the award, and then I would come down and modify that number, either up or down, depending on how much this is going to cost at the end, so that it's full control, item by item.

Going to what Tom said, though, do we have time for full privacy?

Well, and that's, so let me just say that. I think we're at the point, because So I believe we're at the point where I would like us to declare this emergency procurement. And there are always so many elevator contractors. I mean, now we've gone out of town. We're looking at other cities and others. So I do think, you know, just in one week's time, this has gone from a nuisance to we need to probably waive that. and we just have to go.

So you need a motion.

We're not going to go out for a bid right now.

No.

We're in an emergency situation. What do we have to do right now so you can go call Brad?

Plus an amendment to waive the bid requirements for assaults.

And then you have to start with amending the agenda, right? Did I add that?

Yes. YOU HAVE TO AMEND THE AGENDA TO, ONE, ADD THE ORDINANCE, IS IT NUMBER 84? 84.

I MEAN, IT DEPENDS ON ARE YOU GOING TO KEEP THESE OTHER, OKAY, IF YOU'RE KEEPING THE OTHER TWO, YES, THAT WOULD BE 84.

AT THE BEGINNING OF THE MEETING OR BEFORE IT'S BOUGHT ON EACH ORDINANCE, ONE WOULD BE TO ADD ORDINANCE NUMBER 84. TWO WOULD BE TO waive the first reading requirement so that everything with all of the ordinances would be read in second reading. Three would be to waive the bid requirements on the third ordinance, although we could do that at the time. So the only two ordinances to start with would be to add an ordinance to the agenda and then to waive the first reading so that

additional amendments as we go along.

Ordinance 84, as you authored, which appropriates the money for the elevator project, is that not derivative of item B that had that expense? I think rather than adding it to the agenda, we should consider that the amendments to item B is for advertising purposes of sunshine etc um if it was already advertised as idb it's mostly the same subject it's just eliminating the library with expense right so is it so we could amend we could add a new ordinance to the agenda under these circumstances and the reason why i thought they should be separated is because again they serve a different function altogether the first two ordinance simply

establish and fund the reserve account but the third ordinance is altogether different it's saying this is the project we wanted to give you elevators we have contracts out we need money that kind of so that's why they're separated so we would be looking for motions to revise a to amended language for ordinance 83 and then a motion

to add ordinance number 84 to the agenda. A motion to move both to a second.

Right, and then a motion to waive the bidding requirements. That's why I think that the amendments should start out generally as to amend the agenda to add an ordinance and to... And then when we get to the first ordinance and second ordinance, other amendments could be made at that time to deal with this.

Mr. Chair, I want to break these up because I think it's relevant that I could make a motion to do all three floor actions, but I think the problems are separate. like to make a motion to revise new business item a to b as per ordinance 83 is presented to us by the solicitor the creation of the capital fund 82. yeah there is no amendment to 82. oh your business 83 is intended to be 83 is intended to be B then?

Yes.

Okay. My apologies. Revise the motion to amend item B as per text of ordinance 83.

Second. Second.

Could you re, I'm sorry, could you state what that amendment is? Sure.

Ordinance allowed. Ordinance number 83 as amended verse 2026 creation of fund for capital expenditures being enacted by the County Council of the County of Erie pursuant to Article 2, Sections 3B1, 3B2F, and Article 8, Section 8 of the Home Loan Charter and certified by the County Executive that this 2026 Capital Reserve Fund budget supplemental appropriation of $5 million and creation of fund for capital expenditures is hereby approved as outlined in the attached Exhibit A, provided all appropriations and or transfers to the capital reserve fund, all expenditures from the fund and all capital projects to be funded shall be approved by capital council. This order shall be effected immediately upon adoption. That's the motion.

Motion to amend by Copeland.

Second by Mr. Worms. Right? Correct. Any discussion? Please vote. Mr. Chilcott.

Mr. Copeland.

Yes.

Mr. Drexel.

Yes.

Mr. Showerman. Yes. Mr. Wirtz.

Yes.

Mr. Winarski.

Yes.

Mr. Bale.

Yes.

Chairman Scatella.

Yes. Mr. Chair, I'd like to make a motion to add ordinance number 84-2026 as provided by the solicitor. Add to the agenda of the second 2026 capital reserve fund budget supplemental appropriation million dollars for the courthouse elevator project uh being enacted by the county council of the county of erie pursuant to article 2 sections 3b 3 3b 1 3b 2 f and article 8 section 8 the all-new charter certified by the county executive this 2026 capital reserve fund budget supplemental appropriation of 2.25 million and i'm sorry for courthouse elevator project is hereby approved as outlined on the attached exhibit A and not your text and waiver of bid requirements and sole source agreement. This ordinance shall be effective immediately upon adoption.

Is there a second?

Second.

Any discussion? Ms. Chilcroft.

I guess I have one question. Have anybody, any company, if you talk to anyone about a time frame, how long it'll take to at least get one elevators?

Wait, minimum six months. Six months. So we still have people that we're bringing up. That's why we have the two different ones that are coming up to fix them in the meantime.

So one technician wasn't able to do anything. He called multiple companies out of town. We've got another guy to come up to Pittsburgh today. They're going to be back here tomorrow. But it's going to be... These are old Otis elevators. They're from the 70s. Yeah, right. But yeah, anything new we order, it's going to be six months from what we're being told. So we'll do everything we can to keep it running. It's going to be tough, but we'll do what we can.

That's the urgency.

Yeah.

Are there any other questions? Ms. Chilcott, is that it?

Mr. Drexel?

Yes.

Mrs. Showerman? Yes. Mr. Wirtz?

Yes.

Mr. Winarski?

Yes.

Mr. Bale?

Yes.

Mr. Copeland?

Yes.

Chairman Scatella?

Yes.

Mr. Chair, I would like to make a motion to move items A, B, and C to a second reading.

Is there a second?

Second.

Any discussion? Ms. Chilcock?

Mrs. Showerman? Yes. Mr. Wirtz?

Yes.

Mr. Wynarski?

Yes.

Mr. Bale?

Yes.

Mr. Copeland?

Yes.

Mr. Dreissel?

Yes.

Chair Muscatello?

Yes. They need to be ready.

Did we feel the need to add to waive the bid requirements or not?

That was my motion.

That was part of that. Yes, I'm sorry.

So now we're going to vote on.

Well, we never did. We never read 82. All we do is revise the agenda. So now we're just voting on A, B, and C.

All right, we're ready.

Are you ready now? Second, read of ordinance number 82, 2026, 15th, 2026 general fund budget supplemental appropriation of $5 million for transfer to capital reserve fund for non-bond and shoe capital projects.

So move.

Sorry, you made the second on it? I did. Thank you.

Any discussion? I'm just going to say that I want to be a no on this. Like I said, I don't think that we should be sending that $5 million over to understand fixing the elevators. And like our solicitor, I believe that money could be pulled from the general fund. So, well.

Mr. Wirtz? Yes. Mr. Wynarski?

Yes.

Mr. Bale?

No.

Mr. Copeland?

Yes.

Mr. Drexel?

Yes.

Mrs. Showerman? Yes. Chairman Scatella?

Yes.

Motion carries six to one. Second read of ordinance number 83, 2026. First, 2026 capital reserve fund budget supplemental appropriation of $5 million and creation of fund for capital expenditures.

So moved.

Any discussion?

Mr. Wynarski?

Yes.

Mr. Bale?

No.

Mr. Copeland?

Yes.

Mr. Drexel?

Yes.

Mrs. Schauerman? Yes. Mr. Wirtz? Yes. Chairman Spitella?

Yes.

Motion carries six to one. Ordinance number 84, 2026, second 2026 Capital Reserve Fund budget supplemental appropriation of $2,250,000 for a workhouse elevator project and waiver of the bid requirements, the sole source vendor.

Any discussion? Mr. Chilcott.

Mr. Bale?

No.

Mr. Copeland?

Yes.

Mr. Drexel?

Yes.

Mrs. Showerman? Yes. Mr. Wirtz? Yes. Mr. Wynarski?

Yes.

Ms. Gutella?

Yes.

And that motion carries six to one.

Next finance and personnel committee meeting on Thursday, September 17th, 2026. The next regular meeting of county councils Tuesday, September 22nd. Motion to adjourn. Thank you, everybody. Thank you very much.

Thanks, guys.

We will keep you updated as we go along.