Parkersburg City Council to receive budget Tuesday
Final reading of Sunday alcohol item on agenda
PARKERSBURG — Mayor Tom Joyce will present his first municipal budget at Tuesday’s Parkersburg City Council meeting.
Before council members get to work on that, they’ll consider multiple items, including the final reading of an ordinance allowing Sunday alcohol sales to begin at 10 a.m., the first reading of an ordinance vacating three alleys at the site of a planned Sheetz location and an amendment to the city’s Community Development Block grant budget.
The meeting is scheduled for 7:30 p.m. Tuesday in council chambers on the second floor of the Municipal Building.
Elected mayor in November, Joyce has been working with city Finance Director Eric Jiles and various department heads on the 2017-18 fiscal year spending plan since his first week in office.
“We’ve worked very hard. We made a lot of tough decisions with regard to the budget,” Joyce said.
The mayor declined to go into specifics on the budget Friday, preferring to wait until it was presented to council.
“I welcome their input, their suggestions,” Joyce said.
Council will vote on the final reading of an ordinance allowing holders of Class A liquor licenses to begin serving alcohol for on-premises consumption at 10 a.m. on Sundays.
The first reading passed 6-3 at council’s Feb. 14 meeting and generated plenty of discussion during the public forum. Proponents say the measure, authorized by the Legislature last year, will allow businesses within city limits to compete with Ohio establishments, while opponents argue it’s unnecessary and will increase the likelihood of drunk driving.
Council will consider the first reading of an ordinance vacating a trio of alleys in the block bounded by Seventh, East and Mary streets and Stephenson Avenue where a Sheetz convenience store and gas station is planned to be built. The Municipal Planning Commission recommended the move in a 9-1 vote. The opposed member expressed concern about the impact on a neighboring resident’s access to her property.
A resolution referred to council by the Finance Committee seeks to amend Community Development Block grant budgets going back as far as 2008 to close out accounts for completed projects and reallocate unexpended funds for ones that are not shovel-ready. The combined $361,686 would be used to set up an account to pay on the principal of the approximately $2 million loan for the Point Park project, completed in 2011.
That will allow the city to allocate funds that might otherwise count against it when federal regulators look at the timeliness of the city’s use of its CDBG money, Development Director Rickie Yeager said during the Feb. 14 Finance meeting. If the city has more than one-and-a-half times its annual allocation unused, the amount of grant funding it receives in the future could decrease, he said.
Paying on the principal will reduce the amount of the city’s $108,000-a-year payments on the loan, Yeager said.
Another resolution would allow the mayor to sign a lease with Martin Marietta for a right of way to establish a multiuse trail along that company’s property between Point Park and Little Pond Run. Yeager said it’s one of multiple rights of way the city is working to secure to allow construction of the trail, which would link Point Park with Vienna and points north.