City Council - Regular Meeting

evening everyone i would like to call tonight's city council meeting to order welcome we are coming to you from the trade and transit 2 building uh please rise for the invocation by dr adam yoder followed by the flag salute

Lord, as we gather this evening as servants of the city and its people, grant us wisdom to see clearly, courage to act rightly, and humility to remember that we serve not ourselves, but the community entrusted to our care. Where there is disagreement, give us charity. Where there is difficulty, give us patience. And in all things, let our decisions reflect not what is expedient, but what is just and good for Williamsport. Amen.

and 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. Thank you. We will Move on to agenda item number three, approval of city council minutes. May I have motion, please? So moved. Second. Mrs. Frank, on the motion, please.

Dr. Yoder.

Yes.

Mr. Milligan.

Yes.

Mr. Mackey.

Yes.

Mr. Dessinger.

Yes.

Mr. Polizzi.

Yes. Motion passes 5-0. Agenda item number four, limited courtesy of the floor. I was told we have one request for limited courtesy of the floor. Welcome, Mr. Huffman. Please come up, state your name and address for the record. You have three minutes, sir.

Good evening, Council Vice President Polizzi, members of Council, Bruce Huffman, 1000 Cherry Street in the city. Item 10, I understand there's going to be some document scanning that's going to happen soon. That's great. I'm particularly concerned about maps. historical maps of the city. And I spoke with Chris a little bit about this and get the impression that this might not happen with this particular grant, but maybe in the future. But I would like to suggest that when it does happen, if various maps that I've actually seen in the basement of City Hall that are not only valuable just because they show the development of the city, but sometimes they can clue you into certain things that people forgot about that may actually affect things right now. I'd just like to suggest that when it comes time to decide whether they're scanned or not, what to do with them, if the city no longer wants to keep them, that you consider donating them to the Cumming County Historical Society. There actually is a committee, a standing committee of council called the Committee on Historic Preservation that actually does include several members who are not with the council or with the city administration. And those are the Harb Board Officer, a member of the Historical Society, a member of Preservation Williamsport. So it may be a good time that this isn't even happening now to maybe get that group together and look at some of those things and decide if they're not gonna be kept, maybe how they would be split up between those groups, or like I said, donated to historical sites, I'm sure they would be happy to receive them and care for them for as long as they can. So I just wanna bring that to your attention and hope you will consider that, thanks.

Thank you very much, Mr. Huffman. I don't believe we have any other requests for limited courtesy of the floor. We will move on to agenda item number five. Mrs. Frank, in short form, please.

Ordinance of the City Council of the City of Williamsport approving the termination and filing of certificate of termination of the Williamsport Municipal Authority in first reading.

Thank you. May I have a motion, please? So moved. Seconded. Thank you. Mr. Hauser, welcome.

Well, thank you, Vice President Polizzi, members of council. For those here who haven't seen me that much, I'm Justin Hauser, the Assistant City Solicitor from Lock Haven, filling in for Austin, who's usually here, Austin White, who's on vacation this week. Austin filled me in on this, at least somewhat here on this ordinance. Generally speaking, it's my understanding that the... Williamsport Municipal Authority has not been active for the last 20 years or so. And in fact, it no longer has any appointed members in it, according to the information that we have. And they are looking to close the authority out. It has no operations. The Pennsylvania Municipality Authorities Act provides that, of course, municipalities can create authorities to do certain things, and they can also dissolve them. And that's to be done by ordinance, which is why we have the first reading of that tonight. If the authority has any assets, they would come back to the city. If the authority has any debt, that would also come back to the city. But it's my understanding from what Mr. White provided me that it's believed that this authority has neither. So it's really a matter of cleaning up the record. So that's essentially what item five is about. If there's any questions or otherwise, that's a summary.

Thank you very much. Mr. Hauser. Thank you. Any questions from council? Mr. Mackey. Go ahead.

I'm just curious what exactly was the. The authority meant to accomplish, like. the municipal authority?

That's a very good question and it's one that I don't have the answer to right here. I would guess based on just the name of it, it may have dealt with either water or sewer issues at one time because most entities that were just called municipal authority Some of them were formed as far back as the 40s or 50s. And a lot of times they dealt with things like that. And then as more specialized or regional authorities and organizations came into effect, those general purpose ones fell by the wayside. So that would be my guess.

Thank you. Any other questions? No? All right. Thank you. Thank you. Mrs. Frank, on the vote, please.

Dr. Yoder.

Yes.

Mr. Milligan.

Yes.

Mr. Mackey.

Yes.

Mr. Dessinger.

Yes.

Mr. Polizzi.

Yes. Motion passes 5-0. Moving on to agenda item number six. In short form, please, Mrs. Frank.

Resolution recognizing Penn College Senior for partnering with Citi on rebranding initiative.

Thank you. May I have a motion, please? So moved. Second.

Good evening. Thank you, Vice President Polizzi, members of council and the administration. This resolution here is just recognizing Riley Shipman and actually her classmates, too, for the work that they did this year, probably about a year ago. Rob Cooley, who's here, Joanna Flynn as well. who's the vice president of academic affairs and provost at the college joined us up here. But Rob approached me maybe a year or so ago. Rob is very active, not just in our community, but throughout the whole county. And he said, there's a class at Penn College that does branding and different things. And how about we give them a real life project to work on alongside the city. And so I thought that was a great idea. Rob approached the professors. They thought it was a great idea. And so here we are. So throughout the semester and throughout the year, Riley and her classmates worked on different branding ideas or ideas for the city. And we got narrowed it down to this one. And so as you see, I handed out some different things, some examples that Riley created. And all the credit goes to Riley. She did all of this. They ran with it. I think it turned out really, really nicely. But again, just it was a great partnership. We have great partnerships with Penn College. And so getting to know Riley through this process. And Riley's also a local Williamsport resident. So that was kind of cool, too. Not all of her classmates, of course, were from Williamsport. But she had a vested interest, even on top of being in the class and wanting to do well in a 400-level class. She is from here. So she really, really took it a little more to heart. So she wanted to see her hometown here. continue to thrive and be successful. And so again, credit to Riley. She actually, she was a senior. She did graduate, correct, in May. So she has since graduated. But again, just wanted her to highlight this partnership, highlight the work that she's done. I don't know, Rob or Riley, if you want to say any words or if they have questions, if you guys have questions for any of us.

You don't have to, you don't have to.

I just want to say thank you for recognizing me today. I'm really happy to be able to be standing before you with something that I made to improve the city that I grew up in. So thank you so much.

Not to belabor the point, but one of the things that I'm looking forward to out of this is a freshening of the brand of the city and inviting new businesses and new opportunities for tourism and kind of a new energy. And Riley's bringing that to our community. So I want to thank you for your hard work and your time. Thank you for the partnership.

Yeah. And then we also have, you know, our website who's Spike Krepshaw. He's a professor at Penn College too. It's outside of his realm of Penn College, but so we just have great relationships with Penn College and we appreciate that. And we'd like to come to college and many others, but So just to highlight that, and again, thank you. And if there's any questions, happy to answer them.

Thank you very much, Mayor. Congratulations. I'm not going to speak for everybody else, but as somebody who makes part of my living on fine graphic design and artwork, this is great. I love to see this project. So fresh ideas here to the city. We all know I think we could certainly use some, so. Did anyone else from council like to say anything? Mr. Councilman Milliken.

I just want to say thank you. And I echo what you said. This partnership is super cool. Riley, this design is really cool. I challenged council. I think we should all get some forearm tattoos on the outside. But no, it's really cool. And I really appreciate your effort towards this. And frankly, it's exciting. So thanks.

And I think, correct me if I'm wrong, I think sort of the The arc is like the river, right? The mountains kind of thing. Right. Right. So the bridge, the bridge between nature and the city and different things. So yeah, I'm not artistic at all, as you can probably imagine, but she is.

Dr. Yoder. So first, as a Penn College alum, really proud of you. Amazing work. You know, this is not uncommon for Penn College as well. I know my time on council and even as a student and as an employee also, you know, we're, as an institution, we're really embedded in the community and we do this kind of stuff. So it's really good to see and thank you for doing that. I would also say, when we think about what partnerships with these institutions look like, this is really good stuff that we should be trying to do more of. I mean, it's a win-win, right? We get an amazing product from our local institution. We have a student who gets an amazing hands-on experience here and it puts the college in the position to try to give back to the community as well, which is a part of their charter, right? So this is a win-win. I hope we can see more of this. This is excellent. An application question. So Mayor Slaughter, what are we going to do with this?

That's what we're talking about right now. So looking at the website, talking with the Visitor's Bureau, the Chamber, sort of sky's the limit. Listen, do you all, whatever we think. We don't really have tattoos.

A tattoo for me, but Dave's in though. You go, Dave.

But I think that's sort of why, you know, the connect here. I mean, I think there's just a lot of different applications. She was playing a little round with like the million more sort of wingsport mariners, many more connections, you know, whether it's, you know, if we have conferences here, connect here. Yeah. So, yeah, we're just playing with a lot of different things right now. Yeah.

No, that's great. I mean, my point in asking that is we should definitely use this. I hope we do. Oh, we're done. Let's just not let it sit on a shelf by any means. And John's not going to probably like what I have to say here. But this is a nice probably conduit for maybe a standing committee that is not in the nitty gritty of. Yeah, I know. You're welcome. That is in the nitty gritty of kind of vetting what we're working on. every other week, right? You know, you think about the Economic Revitalization Committee, for example, where it's not something necessarily we're voting on, but it's a formal public conduit where we're having collaborations amongst ourselves in the city, but then it's open to the public and we can kind of pull them in as well. So something like that would be excellent. I'd be interested in taking a part in if it comes to that. I'm excited to see us use this. Great stuff. Well done. Thank you very much. And good luck to you as you enter your post-graduation endeavors. Thank you very much.

Any other members of council? No. Okay. Mrs. Frank, on the vote, please.

Dr. Yoder.

Yes.

Mr. Milligan.

Yes.

Mr. Mackey.

Yes.

Mr. Dessinger.

Yes.

Mr. Palizzi.

Yes. Motion passes 5-0. Congratulations again.

Okay.

On to item number seven. Mrs. Franken, short form, please.

Resolution authorizing the sale of fire apparatus to Trout Run Volunteer Fire Company.

Thank you. May I have a motion, please? So moved. Second. Chief Hare, welcome, sir.

Good evening, counsel. So this resolution, we backed about two years ago, we got a new fleet of apparatus and we had tried to sell this piece of apparatus through a third party company, Brindley Mountain, with no success. They were like a consult to get the advertising for it. The truck is actually set in reserve in a reserve firehouse strip, no equipment on it for the last year. And here, a year ago, Trout Run, if you remember, they had a flooding event at their house. They had a lot of problems with their firehouse. Recently, their fire engine broke, and we actually loaned this truck to them to keep them in operation. Since then, they've began to enjoy the truck and wanted to buy the truck. I talked with the solicitor when we ended up doing a sealed bid, and they ended up being the high bidder at the $10,001 bid.

Okay.

Thank you very much, Chief. It's great to see some of our equipment go to local community that had faced some tragedy, and hopefully they'll get some great use out of it.

Yep.

And does any member of council wish to ask a question, have a comment? No? No? Okay. Mrs. Frank, on the motion, please.

Dr. Yoder.

Yes.

Mr. Milliken.

Yes.

Mr. Mackey.

Yes.

Mr. Dessinger.

Yes.

Ms. Mealy. Yes. Mr. Polizzi.

Yes. 6-0. Thank you. Okay. Thank you. He's back. Thank you. No, no worries at all. We are going to jump to agenda item number nine, resolution, or I'm sorry, in short form, please, Mrs. Frank.

Resolution authorizing an agreement between the Williamsport Bureau of Fire and Glick Fire Equipment Company.

Thank you. May I have a motion, please? So moved. Second. Thank you.

Yes. Good evening, members of council. Thank you. I'm presenting this tonight on behalf of the fire department because it is a CDBG funded project and we're bringing it before you again. So we've already discussed the purchase of this river Raptor boat with you previously, which was approved, but we're bringing it back again because we're asking to make a sole source purchase. We put this out last, forbid in the Sun Gazette, but then also emailed it to all of the known vendors. So we did all of our due diligence. The fire department was able to provide us with a lengthy list of vendors who may be able to provide this. We did not receive any responses. So we are procuring it through CoStar's. And there was a memo provided to you by CEDACOG explaining the actual details of the boat and why it's specific and what we need it for and the conditions of the Susquehanna and all those details. So I'm not going to review those now unless you specifically would like me to. But this is just asking for your authorization to make the purchase according to the city's procurement policy, which requires your approval.

Thank you very much. This is one of those pieces of equipment that is really, really cool, but you pray you never have to use it.

Yes. Yes.

I see that it's all going to be funded through CDBG?

All funded through CDBG. And Kenny Smith is not here tonight, but he likes to tell the story about how this boat goes 60 miles an hour in three inches of water. Like you said, God forbid we ever need it, but it's a really nice asset for the city to have.

Excellent. Great. Does any member of council have anything they wish to ask?

Councilman Milliken. I just and that reminds me of a conversation that I had with Kenny where he detailed a water rescue that was dangerous and impeded because at the time we didn't have the appropriate equipment from my recollection. So this is something that can save lives. Absolutely.

Thank you. Any other comments, questions? No.

Okay.

Mrs. Frank, on the vote, please.

Dr. Yoder.

Yes.

Mr. Milligan.

Yes.

Mr. Mackey.

Yes.

Mr. Dessinger.

Yes.

Ms. Mealy. Yes. Mr. Palizzi.

Yes. Motion passes 6-0. Thank you, Ms. Fessler. I'm going to jump back to agenda item number eight. Mrs. Frank, in short form, please.

I'm sorry, what number is that?

I'm sorry, agenda item number eight.

Resolution intergovernmental cooperation agreement provided property enforcement.

Thank you. I have a motion, please. So move. Second. Thank you. Mayor, welcome back.

Thanks again. Good evening again. Vice President Polizzi, members of the council administration. What you have before you is an intergovernmental cooperation agreement for blighted properties enforcement. Chief Hare did the majority of the work on this. I know my name's next to it on the agenda, but I will defer to him. But this is really, as we know, our redevelopment authority has money that they need to spend by the end of 2026 to 31st of this year. And so what this is granting the redevelopment authority, the ability to contract with any certain area of the community and look at expediting really them to be able to spend the money, get to some of the blighted properties a little more quickly alongside of course, Arco's department, but just expanding that capacity. so that they can spend the money, knock on wood, by the end of the year, they do have a plan. But that's really what this is. It doesn't give them any, they can't circumvent any processes or anything like that. Still, it comes up by property commission. The same process as always. They have to follow all the city ordinances and laws and all that type of stuff. And Chief, I don't know if you have anything to add to that.

Thank you very much. We had a conversation regarding this. You're on, I'll turn the mic on. Thank you. Usually I'm never the one to have my mic off. But I know we had a conversation about this on Tuesday at the Committee of the Whole. There was some concerns that were brought up. And I'll open up the floor to anyone that has questions.

Yeah, just a couple. Dr. Yoder. So one of the questions I asked on Tuesday was the funding stream from the RDA. And I was of the impression on Tuesday it was not being funded by ARPA money, which is good because ARPA is not eligible to fund this. So what's the funding stream that the RDA is funding this from? I see you out back there, Skip. Just to do our diligence and confirm, right? Good evening, by the way, and good to see you.

Good evening, members of council. The redevelopment authority, land bank authority, will be using their own funds independent of any federal dollars.

Okay. So you have funding that is not earmarked, but like not as unrestricted. Unrestricted dollars. Yeah.

Yes, sir.

Okay. And can, between you, Skip, Chief, can you just walk me through how this is going to operationalize? What's the day-to-day of this going to look like? What's the reporting back between the city and the RDA going to look like on enforcement? Who's doing what? How's this in operation going to happen?

Redevelopment Authority will be retaining a... certified state certified licensed codes enforcement company, which we already used as part of our process when we acquire properties to make sure that we're following the appropriate codes. The reason we brought this to you is because of the significant investment that we're already in the middle of putting into that area of the city that we outlined in the request or in the intergovernmental agreement. We will be using our consultant, which is codes assessment professionals, which are state licensed codes enforcement officers. They will go out, go through the whole of that area that we've designated for your approval, and they will do an inventory of all the blighted properties and other properties. And then we will begin the process of codes enforcement and following all the rules and regulations of not only the city, but of the state. We will issue violation notices. We will then proceed to prosecute if they aren't remedied. And Mr. Lyons of Codes Assessment Professionals is here. He could probably answer some of these questions about the process that he follows. I'd be glad to...

yield the microphone to him i speak a lot way too often on these things so if you don't mind i'd have him try to answer some of your questions specifically yeah i mean he's welcome to come up the root of my i mean the root of my question is really you know to be to be frank i'm a bit uncomfortable with the city seating authority for enforcement to a different authority um and I don't think that this would happen between the board members that are there. You skip. Right. And I'm not questioning your consultant by any means. Not at all. But I I'm uncomfortable creating a situation where that could happen.

Well, we are going to be reporting to to the mayor and chief hair on a every two week or as needed basis on any of the issues. And if a constituent would come in and tell the codes department that uh, we have a property that such and such an address in the area that we're all they need to is notify me or Joe, and we will have a certified officer out there to do the inspection. And if it is in violation, uh, issue the, uh, permit, uh, the funds all come back to the city, uh, for any of those fines. Uh, we are, we are working as an instrument to assist the city to, to, uh, hopefully better enforce blighted properties and codes issues and help resolve the situation we've been finding ourselves in for the last many years, where the area that we're talking about probably has about 11 million 1,100 homes, plus or minus. And the typical rule of thumb is about 10% of them are probably severely blighted. So we're going to be looking at potentially 100 properties that we might have to issue citations to. And hopefully it gets everybody energized to do the appropriate property maintenance issues so that we don't have to continue with going after bad properties individuals who leave their properties fall in disrepair and paint a bad image for the city. We're just acting as a partner for the city. Your ordinances do allow for you to designate someone as a third-party agency to do that. We're not trying to take away from codes in any way, shape, or form. My board thought it was important that we

work in partnership and we put some extra eyes and boots on the street so let me ask this question um was there any discussion about the city being the agent that would hire and can and still managing enforcement um and if so what led to the decision for in the way that this is written for the rda to be the agent that is managing enforcement doing the hiring well the city

could do it. We were trying to help the city by using our money and knowing that there are always financial costs to bring in third parties. It's a limited time period. It ends at the end of the year. The agreement is from June 15th to December 31st. Then at that point in time, we can change. At that point in time, our agreement that you're looking at tonight terminates. And if it's something with the city council and the RDA board want to do, we could continue with another agreement or the city could go out and do a request for proposals and hire whomever they like. This is just a short-term fix to a major problem.

Let me ask this question. Would the RDA be amenable to changing this so that the city is the agent that hires it and still maintains oversight of it with the RDA still funding it?

I doubt it.

You doubt it? And why? Just because my board is...

watched what has happened with the existing codes, officials, and I'm not trying to be disparaging, but it hasn't been...

The code of office isn't perfect. I certainly understand and respect that.

And so they, I think, want to be able to at least have oversight. Working in partnership with C. We're not looking to do this... We don't want to be the codes officers for the city. We're just looking to help you for a short period of time. Since we are putting in probably a million to a million and a half dollars into the area that we're talking about using ARPA funds. And my board looks at these properties that we're working on and 25 yards down the streets, another property that is in utter disrepair We're saying, give us a chance to make sure we're managing the area that we're investing a lot of money in. And the private entities are already. We are looking at the it's a gateway into Penn College. You have the new Lumberyard's baseball complex. You have other private investors making investments in along that area. Just just this was my board's. intention was to be of assistance and, and, and try to make the area look and present a better picture for the city.

And, and let me read a few points. I appreciate that. And, and to be candid, like, I think this is a solid idea in terms of trying a different approach to codes enforcement and, and getting some support for the codes office. Like I, I'm not poopooing the idea here. And, and again, like, I don't, I don't think that anybody that is within, you know, the RDA, et cetera, would would like purposely or is trying to do any of that. Right. Let me put it this way. If I learned anything in the six and a half years that I've been here from the whole fallout from the whole Bill Nichols thing. OK, it's that putting too too much authority. within an entity can lead to bad things. And, you know, that can even happen to good people with good intentions that don't mean to do bad things. And so I'm simply hesitant with that structure because of a little bit of that experience that I've had in that history. And I just don't think it's right or fair to put you or the board in that position. That's my hesitation, right?

But we still are reporting to your code's office.

Well, reporting is one thing, but having the authority is different. And I make a distinction between the two of them. Right. I mean, oversight's one thing. I mean, but actually having the authority is a different one. It's just a line I've been uncomfortable with myself. Right. And that's why I just asked the question, you know, is there a different setup of this that would be more that would be amenable to the RDA to try to find a compromise and to, you know, frankly champion the idea, right? The idea is rooted in a lot of good things. You know, I think it's something that would be really worth trying just with a different, you know, operational structure.

I can't speak for my board, so I wouldn't be willing to give you a commitment tonight.

I understand. I understand.

And I would agree with Adam on that one, to be honest. I think this is a great idea, and we certainly appreciate the RDA stepping up and saying that they want to give a concept like this a try in a limited zone in the city. I think that's really powerful. I share Adam's discomfort with this being unilaterally run by the RDA. I think it puts you guys in the unfortunate position of looking a bit like you're doing a judge, jury, and executioner sort of operation on a piece of property. in a way that I'm not sure would play out well in the long run. That is to say, if the RDA is citing the property, if the RDA is sending it to blighted properties, and then if the RDA is making other enforcement actions in the neighborhood, I'm afraid that could look a little bad for the RDA in a way that I don't want to see a city authority get, you know, be sort of...

And all the enforcement is on behalf of the city. We're just overseeing the operation.

Well, I guess that's why we're proposing that the city and RDA should be jointly responsible for oversight of the enforcement then.

Well, that's why we're reporting back to the chief. He ultimately can say, we don't want this.

Okay. Well, yeah, I think what I'm saying is I would feel more comfortable if the chief and you were jointly working on this.

We are going to work together on this as we go forward. We need the authority to start putting together the, I'll say the processes. All the processes are the company that we're looking to retain, right? does this for municipalities all across the eight or nine counties around this area. They have all the certifications that are necessary to do the property maintenance inspections. So we are kind of like the vehicle that primes the engine. We're going to be reporting back to the city and if The chief has an issue. We're going to work with him to resolve whatever issues out there. And if it's every two weeks or if it's every other day, the chief and I can sit down. And Mr. Lyons, like I said, he's here tonight representing codes assessment professionals. We will meet with him daily if need be to make sure that what we're doing doesn't. create any issues for either the redevelopment authority or the city in any way, shape, or form. We're just looking for the authority for our consultant and our codes office to go out and inspect and enforce. And the enforcement is going to be through no federal dollars. It's independent. It's the RDA's money.

Do we have an outline on the costs yet?

We're looking at probably something in the $100,000 range. Okay.

And the authority has that much funding? We do. Okay. That's good to know. Mayor Slaughter, just from the perspective of your office, what does your office say to someone who calls in and says, why am I getting cited by the Redevelopment Authority and not by the city of Williamsport? I think it would be...

It would be that ultimately the city of Wayne sport, but I would just, by asking what the citation, what it was for, and that we have a partnership with them and we're looking to really beautify the city. It's just expanding capacity. It's not, you know, you know, some type of negative. I think it's obviously we were trying to, address blight, do some blight remediation and some blight elimination. And this is just assisting with that.

Okay. No, I think, I think that's great. I guess what I'm saying is if someone's calling from within that neighborhood saying, Hey, three blocks over outside of that zone, you know, there's somebody who's not getting cited for any of this stuff. And I'm sitting on, you know, $2,000 worth of citations.

Well, that does happen. We'll send them over. We'll send ours over. So, I mean, that does, that literally does happen. We get calls all the time. Somebody says, Hey, they showed up at my house today, but two blocks over, how come they didn't say anything? Okay, give me the address, we'll send them over. I mean, we do that just about every day, probably. Our chief is pretty full in box on that, actually.

Okay. So I think I would also feel more comfortable with this if the city and the RDA were sort of jointly... part of this contract, part of the oversight, so that we could, when someone called us to ask, we would have an immediate database ready of actions that have been taken, that we wouldn't have to refer them to an office that wasn't part of the city to ask about a code citation they'd received. Also, because it seems to me like partly... I would presume as I think everyone is presuming in this instance that we're going to run into absentee landlords in this neighborhood who aren't taking care of properties. Um, but we may also well run into a homeowner who can't afford to, to, um, maintain their property in a situation like that. Of course, we want them to as quickly and easily as possible, get connected with step with other resources that exist within the community to, um, to help to improve their property, ideally at less cost to them. And if the city is not an immediate partner in this, I think that we have the connections to those resources in a way that the RDA doesn't. So I'm trying to make sure that that is facilitated as well as we can.

No, I agree. Yeah. So I think if that is the case, so we get to a property owner, tenant, landlord, whatever the case might be, and they don't have the funds to fix it up. Usually, you know, and I've sat in front of the magistrate at some of these hearings and the magistrate generally will say, how much time do you need? What's realistic? What can you do? What can you afford? So that's, again, those processes are already in place and we're not looking to hammer somebody that might have a broken step and say, Hey, well, we're just going to keep citing and citing and citing you. We actually just dealt with something very similar not long ago, And we said, okay, we know you're going to work through this. We're not going to cite you every single day. We'll give you the time, six months, whatever, to fix, to bring this to code compliance or where we visited at that point. So yeah, we're not going to like hammer some resident that can't, you know, is trying and, you know, working with us. Now, if you have something that's completely falling down and you're just avoiding us and you have folks in there and it's completely dangerous, that's a little bit different that we probably will. do something about.

Right. Well, and I think all of us agree that that is.

But I think what we're really looking at here, too, is like the worst of the worst. We're not going to go after like one little crack in a window. We're looking at primarily first vacant, extremely blighted properties. I don't want to speak for the RDA, obviously. But we have oversight too. So the properties that, and we all know that are historically blighted, there's at least usually one, if not more in each neighborhood. If we get those vacant ones that have been like that for many, many years, and we're able to get those back on the tax rolls owner occupied, that's really what we're going after first and foremost. I mean, they've done a few already. The one across from the YMCA that they raised next to First Church that they took down. Those were both vacant for many, many years. The fire that was up in Newberry that we did or that Redevelopment Authority did. So and they're working on one on Isabella Street right now. Skip Isabella. Yeah. So those are the problems. These have all been vacant, historically vacant for many, many, many, many, many years. And so that's what we're looking at first.

And so talk to me real quick, Justin, about what the city's role currently is in this, via this resolution. Are we seating all authority in this?

Well, I took a look at it very briefly here, but what I can tell you is, let me just look down through it here. So basically, it's an intergovernmental cooperation agreement between City of Williamsport and the Redevelopment Authority, of course. And basically, as was stated here this evening, the proposal is to authorize the redevelopment authority to hire the third-party code agency that's mentioned in here that the gentleman is here tonight from to administer blighted property enforcement actions and property maintenance inspections and actions within the aforementioned area, and that's bounded by... on exhibit A, which would have High Street, West 3rd, Cemetery Street, Campbell Street, and enforce code enforcement and property maintenance in that area. Now, And that would be under the International Property Maintenance Code that the city's already adopted. It indicates that the redevelopment authority would be the one that is retaining and paying codes assessment professionals. So as was discussed, they're paying codes assessment professionals and codes assessment professionals is their contractor, subcontractor, whatever you want to call it. Or if they decide to go with another agency or more than one agency besides codes assessment professionals, the way it's worded, I think it would allow them to do that. What they're being codes assessment professionals is specifically being hired to do under this is perform blighted property enforcement actions and maintenance inspections and actions within that area. and the city would delegate the authority to perform all that to the redevelopment authority and the code enforcement entity so there is a delegation of authority within that district and i don't know uh whether it's not clear from this whether that delegation is exclusive or concurrent so if if if that's a concern it probably would be best to have that spelled out one way or the other now That being said, it looks like the agreement under this resolution, I think this was discussed, starts June 15th, which is Monday, and it ends on December 31st. So any power, if you adopt this, any power that's delegated under it is for no more than a little less than six, about six months' time. So it would expire at that point. It provides it to redevelopment authority, oversees the third party agency, and then basically provides biweekly status reports to the mayor and the city fire chief. So the way that I read that is that the redevelopment authority has that seated authority from the city under the way it's worded now to basically direct the work of the third party agency and they provide reports to the mayor and the fire chief but it's not clear to me under this resolution that the mayor and the fire chief can override them in any way the way that this is worded Then it talks about if they enforce something and there's a violation fee or a fine and they get that money, it gets paid into the city. They're not keeping any of the fees or the fines that might come out of this thing. It indicates that the redevelopment authority pays all the costs relating to the hiring and the engagement. Basically, the way that it's worded now, my opinion is that for a period of about six months for that particular area, the city turns over to the redevelopment authority control to hire somebody to enforce code enforcement there, provide regular reports, and if it collects any money, hand over to the city. That's the gist of what's written in there right now.

Your impression is that the city could not contraindicate any decisions made by the RDA?

I don't think that it allows for that the way that it's written. Now, maybe the intention was something other than what's written here, and it sounds like that might be the case. But what's written here indicates that that authority is delegated to the redevelopment authority and that they have the oversight of the code enforcement agency. So if that's not what was intended, that's fine, but that appears to be what's written.

Okay. Was that what was intended, Derek?

I think so. I mean, again, I don't want to speak on behalf of the Development Authority Board. I can't speak on behalf of them. But yes, I think we have a great relationship with the RDA. I don't think they're going to go out there, you know, like the wild, wild west and do whatever they want to do and not keep us abreast. But for us to lose any ability to. I mean, again, I think if they go after a property and it's completely ridiculous, I think that chief and myself calling up say, hey, what are you doing? I don't think they're just going to keep going if we have an extreme concern with it.

I mean, I would hope not too, but I guess what I'm saying is- I mean, I don't have strong feelings one way or the other.

If we want to amend and add that language, but I think it would have to go back to, obviously, if you all amended here tonight, it would have to go back to their board for a congruent agreement.

Okay.

I mean, I don't personally have any problem with giving up a little bit of authority. I don't think Chief does either, necessarily. Again, I don't have concerns that the RDA is going to go crazy.

If I may, I don't see it specifically that we're giving up authority, per se, because the contracted officer is... We are. I understand that, but he's still following and abiding by the same IPMC codes enforcement guidelines that our current codes enforcement officers should be enforcing, and they're still going to be having biweekly meetings with the chief. So I guess in one way, shape or form, yeah, it's somewhat of authority, but I personally don't see how there's any kind of negative impact to the city on this other than the city just not being able to put their thumb on everything, which historically our codes enforcement has been pretty negative in the past several years. We haven't a redevelopment authority that's saying we want to help. We want to step up. To show you how much we want to partner with the city. We're going to pay for it all. We're going to you're going to take all the money and we're just asking for. Let us do our thing and we're still going to report to the city. I understand and I share your concerns. I do, but I think this is 1 of those we've been. I think getting in our own way for a while with the city, with the codes department, let's get out of our own way. Let's give them a chance to step up and show us what they can do. We're going to see hopefully accelerated codes enforcement, increased pressure on absentee property owners, slumlords, whatever you want to call them. Hopefully improve neighborhood stabilization is is this is going to be focused in a specific area. And additional fine revenue that we would never most likely have received before. So, as I can understand, I truly can and I respect your, your reluctance. Um, frankly, I think that I, I'm. I think this is great. Um, I I'd like to see this as a, you know, as potentially as a. the start of something that could develop into something bigger and better. I apologize for jumping in. I know some other members of council have had their hands up for some time. Liz, did you still have anything that you want to say?

No, no, no, not particularly. Okay.

Councilman Mackey, you've been patient down there. Yeah, thank you. I apologize.

We just take a few steps back. Mayor, you mentioned money that needs to be spent. So we're speaking of the ARPA money. And could you just remind everybody what that deadline is again?

December 31st, 2026.

Okay. It's June 11th, 2026. So my question, and Vince, you maybe addressed the elephant in the room just a little bit here, right? For whatever reason, our codes department has been hindering the ambition, for lack of a better term, of the RDA. Skip, if we were to not pass this, What is the likelihood, in your opinion, that we would have to return all of that ARPA money to the federal government? Because that would be a terrible thing. We gave you that money to help improve the city, and for whatever reason... That plan hasn't come to fruition and I'm not gonna start throwing people under the bus here, but back to my original question, if we weren't to not pass this, what would the likelihood be that a lot of this money would have to be returned?

It won't happen, Councilman. Today, I just gave to our legal consultants checks to acquire four more properties through evident domain. So that'll give, we have six of them which we hope to acquire within the next 30 days. And on average, a project is, we're spending about $200,000 on each one of those projects. So if we have six, that's 1.2. And if we take our other operational costs, that's going to take us up to about $1.4 million before the end of the year. We have about 1.1, 1.2 that we haven't spent yet. Okay, a little over $1 million. So even if we wouldn't do this, it would not keep us from spending the money. But if we do this, then we can start moving forward and look at how we can help manage blight within the city and make our areas look better. That's the intent of the RDA board here, isn't to just go out and uh be the codes enforcement entity for the city that we just want to partner but the process is cumbersome from getting a project through codes then getting it through the blighted property committee and then getting it to us and then getting it through the courts which have caused us some heartache at times. Certain barristers have different opinions on eminent domain, and they can either help us manage the properties or slow us down. So it all is kind of interwoven together, and it's just the RDA's intention to provide another tool in the toolbox to help the city with codes enforcement.

Okay. So, but passing this would expedite or...

It would help.

It would help.

It would help. Yes, absolutely.

I'm going to have to agree with Councilman Polizzi here. I mean, we're talking about six months. Let's see where this goes. It clearly, I think, is something that maybe needs to be done. So, yeah.

Did you have your hand up, Mr. Milliken?

Hi, Skip.

Good evening.

I guess I just want to first start by saying I appreciate, um, the redevelopment authority, you guys as people who care about your city and you got a mission to do. And I recognize that I have a lot to learn and I, I months ago I met you and you gave me a business card and I need to sit down with you and the redevelopment authority to learn.

Anytime, sir.

Um, with that being said, my, I have some concerns, I guess. Um, Or I should say, I feel a certain level of uncomfortable with the idea about increased enforcement for a specific area. And I get like, this is in some ways how things work. But I guess, and Mayor, you know, you address some of these concerns and that, you know, nobody's looking to just go after people who are on hard times. But that's my concern. And I guess where my mind goes is like, how did we determine that this was the magic area to look at. My mind goes to target is the verb I think about using. I don't mean to think that negatively, but again, that's where I'm just being.

We took an area where we are already investing money, that Habitat for Humanity is investing money. The private sector is investing money. It was an area that we could define, that we could manage. We know that We're looking at about 1,100 plus residential properties in that area that we're looking at. Typically rule of thumb says 10% of them typically are severely blighted. What we're going to do is inventory that area. We're going to look at what properties are vacant, which ones are severely, severely blighted. We're going to create a list. We're going to then review them. First priority is safety issues. You can put down the whole list of issues. We're not going to go after Mr. Jones because he's got grass that are six inches too high.

That isn't our priority.

Our priority is going to be the severely bladed properties. That's what we're going after. And we'll work with everybody. And if there's someone that has financial issues, we will put them in touch with the city, the appropriate agencies, to see how they might be able to help them overcome that. We will give them time to remedy. But a lot of the properties that we are going to be targeting are probably... absentee owners, they're probably landlords that don't even live within this area. And, you know, we were dealing with one, the Isabella property, the owners in New York City, tracking him down was a challenge. So you know, we're dealing with all those challenges. We're just offering to the city an opportunity to provide expanded

Uh, yeah, and I, I appreciate that. And when, frankly, we need you as a partner, right? So I don't want to like sour that at all. But if Councilman Mackey's question about the timeliness of this, does this impact our ability to use the arpa money in time? And it doesn't. Um, I don't think that this is rushed in any way, but there are some serious concerns voice on council tonight. And, um Justin, you brought up some issue i guess my question to the council would be is there any risk in us or members of the council going to the next rda meeting to hash this out a little further and maybe refine it a little bit or alleviate concerns i don't know instead of voting becomes the big issue councilman we're only looking at five and a half months and if we don't get started soon yeah we might as well not start at all yeah

I mean, if the area is a concern, we could open it up to the holes. I mean, it doesn't matter to me. I don't have any feelings. If we're worried about one area, there's plenty of blight. We get calls every, again, calls all the time. So we're just literally trying to take a million dollars and get it out there as quickly as we can to address blight. That's really, I mean, so if the area, we could, that doesn't matter to me. I don't have strong feelings. I don't have strong feelings. I just would like to address blight. That was the intent of whatever we did way back when was for blight remediation. So if we want to open it all up, that doesn't matter. That's a concern. If you're going to think people are going to call it, why just my neighborhood? Okay, let's do the whole city. We do the whole city anyway.

So, Skip, can you maybe offer the six of us some coaching here in terms of, you know, what's the – what's an appropriate path forward here if we're split and we don't have maybe a path forward to pass this tonight?

Because- For my board, I don't know what they'll do.

Well, no, no, no. What I mean is like, what procedurally from your perspective of the board makes the most sense? Should we, if there's consensus, should we table this and then have a conversation with the authority board maybe at their next meeting? Should we, I mean- Should we, should we vote it down and then do like, that's what I'm asking for. Like, like I said, I'm not opposed to the concept. The structure is my thing. And I'm uncomfortable with that. I'd be happy to, you know, try to collaborate with the, with the board to see if there was something better. And I, but what I don't want to do is vote this down. um or vote against it even if i'm in the minority um and you know put a bad taste in their mouth because i genuinely appreciate them bringing this forward right that's what i'm that's why i'm asking that skip i don't want to speak for them and i understand but my sense of the board is that if this doesn't carry they may withdraw the offer okay

Not trying to put undue pressure on council, but they've been dealing with this for over two years and they're looking for something to happen.

Just to clarify on that for one second more, Skip, what you're saying is if we would vote it down tonight, then you think they'll withdraw the offer. If we were to table it for two weeks, chances are

I think either one of those scenarios could possibly lead to them withdrawing the offer.

Talk to the group. I'd be willing to take the chance to table it and have a conversation with them. That's just me.

Honestly, some of the limited conversation that I had had with some of the RDAs, I've would have to agree with Mr. Memme on this. I think that if it gets tabled, they're apt to remove the offer entirely, or if it gets voted down, they're willing, they're apt to withdraw the offer entirely. Um, okay. Again, I understand and respect your concerns as far as structure, um, councilman Milliken, I understand, uh, you know, your concerns as far as the area, um, Again, I will just, again, reinforce that I think that this is a good idea. I think it's about time that we got out of our own way and allowed this to happen. If there was any concern about potentially about targeting individuals or whatever it might be in that neighborhood, frankly, to be careful how i say this i'm looking forward to it because the whole purpose of codes enforcement is to target irresponsible landlords irresponsible property owners we want to target them we want to identify them so we can get them to fix their properties and in doing so fix our real estate stock give the tenants better quality of life and start to take our communities back and if it's a concern about the limited geographical boundaries within the city again i like that at least it gives us an idea that we can more closely watch within a limited area over this time frame we're going to be an awful lot more effective i'm assuming that they would be a lot more effective um mr lyons you're here are you able to come up to the dais sir Thank you. Well, good afternoon council. Thank you very much for, I appreciate you coming up. Um, Mr. Lyons, in your opinion, how long would it take you to.

cover this area at least kind of do your first initial let's call it your first sweep of this proposed area the first first sweep would probably with two people and cataloging and everything is going to take approximately two weeks to get everything cataloged down through it is very meticulous process to get the most abandoned ones first The longest process of it is trying to find the owners of abandoned properties. So the abandoned properties are would be looked at first or what looks to be abandoned. And then we go to safety and we break it all the way down to. call it junk, excessive debris, and things of those natures. So we catalog this all down through. We already start sending out letters to what needs to be done. We pull our research. I have a staff at the office that does research to find where the owners are because some of the times, some of the properties are in repository, they're in tax collection, things of those natures. As we go through the process, we're going to run into people that are, as everyone is concerned about, they're financially incapacitated. One thing I can assure you with our company and what we do, we are not the ones that go out and look to immediately, you're getting a fine. That is not us. We work with people. We help them. I work in many municipalities in Lycoming County. Tioga, Juniata, Northumberland, and go on. We refer people who are financially, they say, I can't take care of it. I'm financially incapacitated. We tell them about contacting CEDACOGS. We tell them about contacting commissioners. We put them in touch with people. In Lycoming County, I have used, I am set up with the PRC, Pre-Release Center. Pre-Release Center will go in and help clean up properties through the city or through the nonprofit. It has to be done through a nonprofit. It's not the first property because we haven't had cleaned up for somebody. So there is other avenues that we can go down through and help people. We give an ample amount of time. You know, if you have a property that is excessively blighted you have to give a proper amount of time not 48 hours not even up to five days sometimes you have to give 20 days or 30 days within that time frame we should be hearing back from them That's part of this process. So as these letters go out, as phone calls, as our people talk to them, because we'll knock on doors, we will say hello. We will go through and try to find out what the problem is to try to get it to be remedied. We hear what the problems are, or we don't hear what the problems are. That's when the second set goes out. The second set's a little bit more demanding. and labeling out the ramifications if there's a third letter. And then we go to the magistrates. That's our process. And we continue to go through that until we get to some type of resolution.

Thank you very much. Mr. Lyons, you mentioned that you represent some of the other municipalities within the county. Are you able to identify what some of those other municipalities are within the county that you represent?

Montgomery Borough. I work down in Nipponos Township. We do patrols up there. We actually have municipalities like Montgomery Borough that we do patrols. We do Nipponos, Eldred, Upper Fairfield, A lot of them escaped me at this minute because I...

I'm putting you on the spot.

Yeah. Okay. Tiogo, you know, we're right up in Liberty. Morris, you know, we're in Mifflin. We're in Port Royal. Renova, South Renova. Chapman Township. I mean, I can...

So the company that you work for and represent has quite a history and is pretty experienced in doing this.

Oh, yes.

In codes. It comes. You mentioned that you work with departments as far as to have resources. if you were to end up being retained by the RDA, you get out there, you start doing codes enforcement, you come across the household with somebody who's on a fixed income or that has some financial burden and is unable to make some of the necessary changes. So am I correct in assuming then that you are already experienced and accustomed with being able to provide them with what would be in this case, the city's departmental resources that could show them or assist them in getting some of the funds to fix up their properties?

Yes, I used to be a subcontractor for STEP and Office of Aging. so i had a construction business i'm very familiar with the programs i was bradford county's housing specialist for three and a half years until their funds were used for that program i am also involved in clinton county's home program and i am looking and possibly securing the mifflin county uh home program as well okay So I'm very familiar with CDBG funds, flood rehabs, multitudes of programs that are out there through CDCOGS and other inter-government or inter-municipality funds that may be available.

Okay.

Thank you. I appreciate that. I know some members had a concern as far as the lapse in time or delay in time of an infraction and being directed to a city resource that could help with some funding mechanisms.

Oh, absolutely. In Montgomery just the other day, I had made mention to an elderly person about getting a hold of STEP. Okay.

Councilman. First, thank you for asking some of these questions. Um, and hopefully that might alleviate some concerns might, you know, if, if this specific zone is, is an issue, um, I could suggest that, um, potentially taking that language out, uh, paragraph one and just saying within the city of Williamsport would alleviate maybe some concerns of targeting a specific area of the city i mean the art the rda is is clearly focused on this area of the city i mean we think about the amount of money that's being invested down in that part of town right now the now that we're getting into the summer months the increase in in visitors that we're going to be getting to that part of town Because of the lumber yards, um, you know, I, I mean, I can't, it's in our best interest to, to try and make sure that this part of the city looks a little nicer. Um, so I mean, if, if, if it would help, um, and I, I would. make a motion, I guess, to remove the language in paragraph one, outlining a specific area of the city and just defining it as the city of Williamsport, if that would alleviate other people's concerns.

Just as a legal matter on that, if that's what council decides to do, we'll have to make a few other changes because some other sections talk about this area of the city. So we have to strike that. And if that's included in your motion, we can do that. The only other thing I would suggest is if council decides to do that, that amendment also add the word concurrent in there somewhere, and I can find a place to put it. And the reason I say that is, What you don't want to do is delegate to them authority over the whole city and not retain any for yourselves. And so your own code enforcement can't... Basically, you don't want them to be the exclusive ones doing it because then your code office... somebody could challenge it and say, well, you have no authority to do this, to do anything while this is in effect. So I would just suggest that if that's the way the council wants to go, the way we amend it to fix those things and add the word concurrent in there.

So this is why we pay you the big bucks, right? Clearly, I'm not a lawyer.

I don't think you've had a big day on it.

They're more than adequate. I'm very pleased.

No, thank you. I appreciate you bringing that up. So we have Mr. Lyons up at the dais. Councilman Yoder-Milliken.

Just a couple points to reinforce. I want to repeat, Mr. Lyons, I have zero concerns about you. I'm sure you're well-qualified, experienced. None of my reservations are about you. None of my reservations are about Skip, the board members. My reservations are about creating a system that essentially eliminates... a couple of checks and balances and creates a situation that could concentrate power and create a situation where there are issues that arise from that. And I'm going to, again, point back to, let's talk about the Bill Nichols thing. Okay. Bill Nichols was able to do what he was able to do because he had two or three different things underneath him. with minimal checks and balances, right? The people that created that situation were all really good people. And I'll stick my neck out and say that deep down, I think Bill Nichols was a pretty good dude, right? He was trying to make the city, you know, proper, but the system that he was in, right, created the opportunity for what happened. Maybe this is a great idea, right? The system that this creates makes me uncomfortable and I don't want to be part of that. So, That's the root of it for me. It has nothing to do with anybody individually, has nothing to do with the people that have proposed this. Again, frankly, I think it's great that they proposed this idea. I would be more than happy to support it with a different system, right? That's what it is for me.

So Adam, do you have anything to put forward in terms of your different system?

Yeah, I mean, I'm prepared to make some amendments to it that would reflect the city maintaining the authority and doing that. But again, look, I mean, that's why I asked you the question, Skip. I don't know if going through that amendment process is something that would be amenable to the RDA here. I am more than happy to be a part of a dialogue with the RDA about trying to find something that would make a little bit more sense structurally. And I'm willing to do whatever that requires. makes them a sense that they don't go away from the table, right? That's making amendments. I'm happy and prepared to do that. If that's tabling this, I'm all for that. Um, if it's simply procedurally just voting it down and then it comes back again in the future, that's fine by me too, but that's, I'm very open, willing to do that. Um,

I mean, I think the RDA would be willing, if you change the language to include all of the city and not specifically highlight a specific area, I think that they would be willing to accept. We're not looking to be the sole oversight. That's why we're reporting to the mayor and your fire chief, who is your director of codes. And he will have all the information. He will have ability to get into the software that will be created to manage the bladed properties. We're not looking to be a be all end all. We're just looking to be the entity that helps attack white.

I'm sure you are. I'm not comfortable putting you in the position to where that focus could go elsewhere. I'm not comfortable creating the system or the structure that could put you in a position different than what you just described. That's what it is. It's not you. I fully believe your intentions. we need to be very intentional about the systems that we build for the betterment of the city, right? We need to learn lessons from the bad things that have happened in the city. That's what it is for me.

Correct me if I'm wrong, Dustin, but if we were to amend this agreement in any way, it would go back to the RDA board for a vote at their meeting on the 23rd, correct? And then if they were to accept it as we amended it, then it would at that point become a live agreement, correct?

Yep, I agree 100%.

So which is to say that it seems to me, Adam, like what you should do is propose any amendments you might have. Council can vote them up or vote them down. And then moving from there, at least it would not then at that point need to come back to us for a vote if the RDA agreed with the amendments. Do you see what I'm saying? And then that seems like the cleanest, easiest way.

No, I understand. I get what you're saying. Mr. Hauser, what would happen if this was a 3-3 tie?

If it was a 3-3 tie, the resolution would not be adopted.

Okay. Because it feels like that's going to happen. I don't want to vote it down necessarily. I'm worried that if we make amendments that the RDA would withdraw. However, what I'm going to do in the confidence that the members of the RDA board are logical, rational people and that they would appreciate us tabling this to be able to have a more in-depth and thorough conversation about this to assuage any concerns that we might have as i'm sure that they would welcome that and respect it if if the roles were were reversed um so as much as i would hope this would pass as it is i think i realize it's not going to so with that i'm going to make a motion that we table this so we can have a more in-depth conversation with the RDA in the hopes that we can work out some of these kinks and get this moving forward. Second. Thank you. Mrs. Frank, on the motion to table, please.

Dr. Yoder.

Yes.

Mr. Milligan.

Yes.

Mr. Mackey.

No.

Mr. Dessinger.

Yes.

Ms. Mealy? Yes. Mr. Polizzi?

Yes. Motion passes 5-1.

Skip, again, I reiterate, I appreciate the thought putting into this. I appreciate the proposal. You know, I hope we can figure something out. And I hope we can have a good conversation with the RDA board. And I genuinely mean that. Thank you very much, Skip.

No problem. We appreciate your time, Stephen.

Thank you very much.

Okay. Thank you very much. Let us move on to agenda item number 10 in short form, please, Mrs. Frank.

Resolution authorizing award of professional services agreement to data management for document scanning and digital conversion service.

May I have a motion, please? So moved. Second. Thank you. Mr. Black, welcome, sir.

Good morning, counsel. What I have here is a resolution to scan a certain number of documents that are in City Hall to digital format. I put it out to bid on PenBid, hoping to get three or four respondents. I got 19. All of them, I had asked for a per-page bid. price because I had a limited budget on what I could do. So I couldn't say like all of these documents are all these because I wanted to make sure I spent all of those monies on this project. Everybody was in within pennies of each other on the per page. A lot of them were all over the place on pickup and delivery charges. Data Management International was the only company to come back with a unique solution where they said for the total dollar, the amount of the grant will come. We'll get all the documents that we had observed, which were in the basement room. What's left over there of community developments. And there was some in the first floor lobby, which I believe was for streets and parks. Um, for the total amount. It doesn't matter if they have to make one trip or 30 trips, they'll do all of that. Plus that gives us a one year of online retrieval capability with them. We can download it all to save it locally, which is what I do plan on doing. But until the project's done, it sits out there for a year. It's all easily accessible.

Thank you very much, Mr. Black. Anybody have any, Councilman Mackey?

um to mr mr huffman's uh previous statements uh as far as these maps are concerned yes um is there a plan to scan these and it whether there is or is not are they currently stored somewhere where they're not going to be damaged and if and that i can't say if they'd be damaged or not they're in the same room they've always been in okay Which is?

In the basement. In the basement.

Okay. As part of this... So this company will actually be going into the basement, I'm assuming, with a... We will have everything moved up to the first floor. Okay. So as part of that process, I'm assuming somebody from street... Who's going to be moving the paperwork from the basement to the first floor? It'll be... Other than... I mean, you're going to find some help, right? I hope. I guess what I'm saying is could we also make sure those maps get moved somewhere where they're not going to be damaged? Whether we have intentions of scanning them or not, then we can figure out what we're going to do with them. Where would we move them to? Well, there's got to be somewhere we can put it. I mean, I don't know how big these things are, how many of them are there. There's got to be a room somewhere.

That room is approximately, what would you say, Bruce? That room is approximately 15 by 15.

And it's full of maps?

And it's a catacomb. Of maps? That's cool. Maps.

Okay. I think by law, I think we have to keep the maps. But they're going up. Pretty sure they're going up to Rikert Avenue. So there's space up there.

So we do have a plan to make sure that these things don't get damaged. Yeah, we're not going to... And then once we... decide if we want to keep them or donate them yeah yeah i think these ones we have to keep but we'll check on that if we can donate we can explore yeah but anyway yes yeah if we're in the process of getting everything out of the basement let's get everything out of the basement whether we're giving it to these folks to scan or not i guess this is the point i'm getting at and this would get rid of the vast majority of paper documents that are still in city hall yeah

And we adopted that a couple of years ago, the state statute for scanning, keeping. So we have to follow that. And we've been working alongside Austin too, if we remember that.

Yeah. Thanks for the reminder on that. That slipped my mind. What I was going to say was to kind of piggyback off of that. We should document, codify some type of a procedure, but we already have. And so that's great. And thank you for the reminder of that. It was going to be my comment.

Yeah. Finance did an awesome job with their stuff down there.

Okay. Are there any other questions?

I think this project is going to be very beneficial for the city to organize and preserve a lot of our documents. All I want to say is I think after we do this project, we really need to look into some type of software that can manage accessing this. I know on the other day that we're going to pull down a server, but I would be interested in understanding from a next step, a cloud platform, some type of platform that we could access this and get better visibility of it long-term.

Yeah. Baby steps. Let's get them all digitized first, then we'll, with certain fields that they're categorized as.

Thank you very much. Are there any other questions for Mr. Bly? No? Okay.

Vince, just a quick thank you. This funding came from the First Community Foundation. Yes, yes. And I think it would be appropriate. That is a... a huge deal melanie shut and valerie fessler secured that yeah okay yes thank you val that's well um and and thanks to jen wilson and the whole crew at first community foundation for recognizing that this is simply something essential that we could not afford to do on our own so thank you absolutely i appreciate you reminding me of that thank you mrs frank on the vote please dr yoder yes

Mr. Milligan? Yes. Mr. Mackey? Yes. Mr. Dessinger?

Yes.

Ms. Mealy? Yes. Mr. Palizzi?

Yes. Motion passes 7-0. Thank you, Mr. Black. We're going to move to agenda item number 11. In short form, please.

Resolution authorizing the sale of surplus personal property of the City of Williamsport.

Thank you, Mrs. Frank. Mrs. Livermore, welcome.

Good evening, everybody. So this is a process that you have done in the past. So it kind of fell off for a while. So each time we purchase something from Capital Projects, we use Municipid to sell the expired item, whether it's a vehicle or machinery. We did work with Austin's office and realized that we need to be making sure we bring this in front of council each time. So you guys will see this on a regular basis. And I said that since there's different departments that I would just bring it each time. So Austin did write the resolution. You'll see it a little bit differently based on if it's above or below $2,000. But this resolution is for a Ventrac mower. And the Ventrac mower for streets and parks was in capital projects. They purchased a new one, and this is to be put on municipal bid upon approval. And then the money does go into the parks miscellaneous income in the general fund. Actually, I misspoke.

Questions, comments, concerns from council? No. Okay. Mrs. Frank on the vote, please.

Dr. Yoder.

Yes.

Mr. Milligan.

Yes.

Mr. Mackey.

Yes.

Mr. Dessinger.

Yes.

Ms. Mealy. Yes. Mr. Polizzi.

Yes. Thank you. 7-0. Thank you. I'm going to move on to item number 12. In short form, please, Mrs. Frank.

Resolution of the City Council of the City of Williamsport authorizing the use of budgeted funds and city resources for Williamsport Government Study Commission.

Thank you. May I have a motion and a second, please? So moved. Second. Thank you. Councilwoman Mealy. Yes, indeed. Your resolution.

My resolution. Yes, this resolution actually comes to you on behalf of the Government Study Commission that was elected on May 19th to examine the concept of home rule and potentially draft a home rule charter for the city of Williamsport. It should be followed here shortly by an actual budget for the Government Study Commission. But this is... by and large, codifying our desire to share certain city resources, aka the city solicitor and the city's Our friend over there. The man who makes all the streaming possible for city council meetings will be doing the same for Home Rule in order to reach the widest possible audience. These expenses will, it is my understanding, Jamie, be documented separately as Home Rule expenses so that we can track the final budget since we did already allocate $15,000 in this calendar year. as a match for state investment of funds in the home rule effort. um so um i am one of seven commissioners uh we do humbly request um that the city share these resources with us um because we think that will achieve uh a certain economy of scale in these matters and um and um we look forward to bringing you here i think uh the next council meeting you should also have a request to hire a consultant um to uh facilitate the process of studying home rule um that consultant is funded 90 by the by the state um yeah uh that's everything we have had our first meeting on june 2nd we will have a brief meeting on june 18th to select a consultant um and then uh relatively regular meetings whenever city council is not meeting on Thursdays following that. So July 2nd, July 16th, I believe, and July 30th. You'll pardon me for checking with Ms. Fessler back there, but she is significantly better at keeping things in order than I am. So she has... I'm the one to call if you want total chaos. So Valerie has been kind enough to organize a number of things for the Home Rule Commission in her role as one of the commissioners. And then, of course, we have five excellent other individuals who will be studying Home Rule as well.

Thank you very much, Councilwoman Mealy. Yes, we discussed this Tuesday at the Committee of the Whole.

Thank you, Adam. I hear Adam took lead on this because I failed to show up to the Committee of the Whole meeting. Sorry, everybody.

yes as such i was dr yoder do you have anything that you would like to add no i mean i'll make a couple comments and observations i think first off you know one from what i vividly remember from the effort you know what seven eight nine years ago um you know i think we're miles ahead and and frankly doing this the right way right um i don't know that the home rule commission engage a consultant for the process, engage, you know, legal counsel formally like that. I mean, it was very much very organic and organic in terms of, you know, I don't know that they had as much guidance and professional consultation as what our group is going to or what the current commission is going to. And that's a good thing. It's a very good thing. Um, I would also maybe, um, Liz, if you could pass this to the commission, I do think there might be merit in the commission, maybe engaging their own legal counsel at some point, um, for just a couple of different reasons. I understand the economy scale aspect. That's great. But, um, You know, I do think independent legal advice for the commission would be valuable outside of the city's purview. And so I would encourage the commission to consider that and think about that and maybe go down that path. Just might be a better product, might be better service for the commission, that kind of thing. Just the only other observation I would throw out there.

I think that's a valid point. I'm happy to take it to the commission.

But in the short term, I'm more than happy to approve this. I think getting you all off the ground in the interim is perfectly fine, and I'm very comfortable with that.

Thank you, Dr. Yoder. Yes, we discussed this Tuesday, and there is some benefit to this, obviously, with the study, the commission being able to, quote-unquote, piggyback off of our streaming services, some of our legal services. So there's going to be some benefit there from the budgeting. Um, does anyone from council have any other questions, comments, concerns? Okay. Hearing none. Mrs. Frank on the vote, please.

Dr. Yoder.

Yes.

Mr. Milligan.

Yes.

Mr. Mackey.

Yes.

Mr. Dessinger.

Yes.

Ms. Mailey. Yes. Mr. Polizzi.

Yes. We'll pass a six zero. Thank you very much. Okay, moving on item number 13 certificates of appropriateness may have a motion in a second, please. So move. Second. Okay, thank you. So what we have here is certificates of appropriateness through HAARP. Mr. Hauser, are we able to vote and pass on all of these at once?

Yes, I believe so. I mean, the council can, if somebody wishes to pull one out and vote on it separately for some reason, you can do that. But no, if the vote goes the same way for all three, you can do that. Okay. Thank you.

Can I make a quick statement then? Yes, please. That I am unaware of what Herdickville property is, but as the person who primarily has a bunch of businesses with Herdick in the name, I am not affiliated with that business in any way. And consequently, we can vote on all three of these items and nobody, I don't need to abstain unless someone else does. I think we can vote them all together.

Okay. Thank you very much. So, well then for the sake of expediency, um, Any questions, comments, concerns regarding certificates of appropriateness? Any else? Seeing and hearing none, Mrs. Frank, on the vote, please.

Dr. Yoder.

Yes.

Mr. Milligan.

Yes.

Mr. Mackey.

Yes.

Mr. Dessinger.

Yes.

Ms. Mealy. Yes. Mr. Palizzi.

Yes. Thank you. Vote passes 6-0. Moving on to item number 14, except for filing, hard minutes, May 2026. May I have a motion and a second, please? So moved. Okay. Seeing and hearing no questions, comments, concerns. Mrs. Frank on the vote, please.

Dr. Yoder.

Yes.

Mr. Milligan.

Yes.

Mr. Mackey.

Yes.

Mr. Dessinger. Yes. Ms. Mealy. Yes. Mr. Polizzi.

Yes, we'll pass the 6-0. Thank you. Agenda item number 15, upcoming announcements. Our next regularly scheduled city council meeting will be held here in Trade and Transit 2, Thursday, June 25th, 2026 at 7 p.m., third floor. Our upcoming meetings, Tuesday, June 16th at 6.30, we have HARB. Wednesday, June 17th at 10 a.m., Blighted Properties. thursday june 18th at 10 30 a.m zoning hearing board friday june 19th city hall will be closed for juneteenth tuesday june 23rd at 11 30 a.m redevelopment authority also tuesday june 23rd 1 p.m committee of the whole and our next city council meeting thursday june 25th at 7 p.m city council i will open up the floor to comments from any members of the public

Before the public gets up, I would just suggest with council's indulgence, if we could have a brief executive session for no more than 10 minutes after the council meeting, the purpose to provide information subject to legal privilege. Basically, since I'm here, I'd like a chance to update you on some of the things I'm working on for the city.

Okay. Thank you very much, Mr. Haldeman. Okay. Any comments from members of the public? Yes, sir. Please come up. Please state your name and address for the record and you will have three minutes.

Yes, my name is Jeremy Draper and my address is 2115 West 3rd Street of Williamsport, Pennsylvania. I want to say this is my first council meeting that I've attended and I wanted, it's funny because Skip already kind of addressed something that I was going to talk about and that is city codes. My wife and I we've been dealing with a lot of problems with city codes that are ignoring us. And, you know, a lot of, a lot of dangerous situations that affected my wife and I because of our neighbors. And it happened even, even before we bought our own property, we also had problems with landlords, negligent landlords that didn't do their job. And there is a pattern of property owners in this town not being held accountable. And to be honest, property owners not caring about their property and then it affects their neighbors. My wife and I, when we bought this brand new house last year, roaches started coming in out of nowhere and we hired someone to take care of it. And he said, they're not coming from your house. They're coming from your neighbor's house who would leave garbage out of the front yard and pizza boxes, all this stuff. We called codes, did nothing. Nothing whatsoever. And now we're having their shingles fall on our house. Like their shingles will come off from the wind and they'll come in our backyard. They'll hit our windows. Again, we call codes, talk to the neighbors. They don't do anything about it. We've noticed, we've also talked to our other neighbors about about this issue. And they're like, yeah, we've been having problems with them since even before you moved in there. And again, they've called codes, they don't do anything about it. And it seems that we're not the only neighborhood I've talked to people at work about it. And they also have problems with their neighbors that don't do anything, who just let their property rot, and then the property and then their neighbors suffer the consequences. And this is a wonderful town. This is this beautiful historic town. And we don't do anything in this community to hold property owners accountable. At least not that I've seen. And all of a sudden Skip comes up saying, I'm going to give you guys free money to work on this, to actually go and work on the community. I'm a homeowner living in the city. I don't know where these guys live. I don't know where you live, but I live in the city and like, I've got to deal with this every day. We, like, my wife and I have done what we could. We've gone to codes, even gone to the police, and the police even said the codes doesn't do anything. And that's just, that's just phenomenal. We are just trying to, you know, just, just keep our community nice. And we don't want to suffer the consequences because of someone else's negligence. And we also live right across from two abandoned homes, which I've seen squatters going, going there. I've seen, I've seen some sketchy, which I assumed to be drug transition happen there because no one lives there. So perfect, perfect spot. And again, those people that own those homes don't live in Williamsport. I think they live in New Jersey. So we have a problem. And apparently the RDA is saying, it's like, yeah, we'll fix it. It would be great. It would be really like smartest thing you guys could do is to approve this. especially since the taxpayers are the ones suffering for the consequences of negligent neighbors, negligent landlords, and properties that are just kind of sitting there rotting away, which could be used for something.

I appreciate you coming up, sir. I truly do, and voicing your concerns and your opinions. I apologize. I hate to cut you off, but we've gone a minute and a half over. I didn't want to cut you off in the middle. Obviously, we very much share your concerns, and I would... urge you that before you leave here tonight, we have our fire chief here who's been very proactive in working with our codes department. We have our police chief here and other law enforcement representatives. I would make sure that you make contact with them before that you leave here tonight. But thank you for coming up.

Thank you.

You're very welcome, sir. Are there any other comments from members of the public? Are there any comments from members of council? Councilman Mackey, please.

Yeah, I would just like to thank Jimmy for staying here tonight to address these issues with us. I couldn't agree with you more. And, you know, I can't help but ask myself how many times are we going to hear the same story before we... decide to do something about it. And the RDA, I think, came to us tonight with the beginnings of a solution to maybe do something about this problem. So I really hope that they Engage in some conversation with us and that we can get this past, um, in two weeks. Um, because the checks and balances we're trying to protect, they're not checking or balancing. So, um, something's got to change. So that's all I have to say.

Thank you very much. Councilman Mackey, any comments from the administration, Ms. Fessler, please.

This is my first time on comments from the administration. I have some exciting news to share that's relevant today. Our department, led by Austin Daly, applied for a grant application to FAIR. So I know that you're familiar with FAIR as a funding source. In the past, the city has applied to the county to receive a portion of their fair allocation, but Austin identified the opportunity for the city to apply directly to the state to receive our own allocation that does not take away from the county's allocation. So in addition to the allocation that the county is receiving, the city is going to receive their own allocation this year of $175,000. And what we're going to do with that is there's been a lot of positive comments tonight about STEP and their programs that benefit the individuals in the community who we've been discussing who are dealing with issues of blight and may potentially be in the low to moderate income population, which 57.5% of Williamsport residents are currently. So these programs will benefit those folks who have late remediation that needs to take place and do not have the funds to pay for it. The reason this funding is really awesome is because the compliance and the red tape is very minimal compared to the HUD funds that we receive. There's just less of a compliance burden and a wider range of income scales folks that we can help. I think this will give STEP the opportunity to really tick away at the list of folks who's on their list. So when we made the decision to hire Austin, there was a retirement in the department, and the gentleman who was in the department was highly skilled in construction, contracting, things like that, and he ran a rehab program within our department. with these types of funds. And we made the strategic decision, which was supported by Derek and supported by you all in the budget, that Austin's position would not be a boots on the ground, get your hands dirty type of position. It would be a housing program manager. So he is doing exactly what we hoped he would do, which was identify new and diverse funding sources that we can use to target the populations and the needs in the city. I'm really proud of him, really happy to have him, really appreciative of that position. And I just thought since we talked so much tonight about the need in the city, that I just wanted to mention this because this press release just came out this afternoon. Questions?

Well, one, if I may, congratulations.

Thank you.

This is great. Very quickly, now that we have been awarded this grant, is there potential that we would be awarded it in the succeeding years?

Yeah, the hope is that we would just kind of be on the list to receive it annually, you know, assuming that we'll be able to spend all those funds down really quickly, which we know we can. We've already had a conversation with STEP about their capacity and Um, they're really looking forward to doing that. So, um, we're just thrilled that hopefully this will be a continuing thing that we can just have kind of like, you know, one more little tool in the big, in the big picture of all the things that we need to be doing codes RDA. This is just, you know, one little piece of the puzzle, but we're really excited about it.

Great.

Thank you. Yep. Any questions from council?

I guess I just want to say, uh, for the minutes, Austin's the man. So he is the man. Thank you, Austin.

Yes. Thank you.

Any other comments from members of council? Okay. And any comments from the news media? I don't see any here. Just real quick point of order. Mr. Hauser, do I also have to make public that we will be having a brief executive session after council for the purposes of updated legal matters?

I think you just did. So we're covered.

All right. Making sure we cover all of our bases. You'll hear a motion in a second to adjourn. So moved.

Second.

All in favor?