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Parkersburg City Council to receive capital plan

PARKERSBURG — City Council will receive an updated five-year capital improvement plan, vote on a resolution to accept a recycling grant and hold a public hearing on allowing earlier alcohol service on Sundays when it meets next week.

Council’s first regular meeting of December is slated for 7:30 p.m. Tuesday in council chambers on the second floor of the Municipal Building.

The capital plan will be the second submitted by Mayor Jimmy Colombo after it became a point of contention between his predecessor, Bob Newell, and some members of council. The plan is mandated in the municipal charter to be submitted three months prior to the budget. But that had not been done or updated with regularity for years.

“It actually is a continuation of the one we had last year that’s been updated,” Colombo said.

Finishing touches were still being put on the document when the mayor met with department heads Thursday morning.

The plan is being submitted by an administration led by a mayor leaving office at the end of the month to a council that will have seven new members comes January. Still, Councilman J.R. Carpenter, one of the two incumbents returning in the new term, said it will be a useful resource.

“It’s a planning tool that is required that makes it a little easier to do budgeting,” he said. “The long-term, expensive projects … that probably won’t change from administration to administration.”

One example is the need for new fire stations. The estimated $500,000-apiece price tag in last year’s plan for structures to replace the three Depression-era buildings era helped frame discussion of the topic, with council allocating about $200,000 to the effort and Colombo proposing the city issue revenue bonds to fund them.

Other items in the plan included proposed repairs and renovations to the Municipal Building, some of which will be paid for with money from the carryover from fiscal year 2015-16.

Also on Tuesday, council will consider the first reading of an ordinance allowing the mayor to submit an amendment to the city’s home rule plan to allow establishments holding Class A liquor licenses to start serving alcohol at 10 a.m. on Sundays. If the amendment is approved by the state home rule board, a separate ordinance making the change would have to be passed next year.

Citizens will have the chance to comment on the proposal during a public hearing at Tuesday’s meeting.

The agenda also includes resolutions reappointing three members to the Municipal Planning Commission and accepting a $98,000 Recycling Assistance Program Grant from the West Virginia Department of Environmental Protection. The grant, which does not require a local match, would be used toward the purchase of a skid steer loader, steel material to build storage containers, plastic storage containers, asphalt to pave the road to the recycling center and an update of the center’s website.

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