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Parkersburg City Council meeting Tuesday

Fee discounts, budget revisions on agenda

PARKERSBURG — City Council will consider budget revisions and a discount for paying fees for the full year in advance when it meets Tuesday.

The meeting is scheduled for 7:30 p.m. Tuesday in council chambers on the second floor of the Municipal Building.

Although some council members expressed interest in a larger discount, all four ordinances offering the 1.5 percent reduction for paying the annual fees up front passed on a single 7-0 vote at council’s July 10 meeting, with two members absent. Finance Director Eric Jiles has said the goal is to simply give payers another option and the discount is not expected to have a material impact on the budget.

Five resolutions on the agenda are budget revisions related to items with which council has previously dealt.

One would revise the budget to reflect $100,000 in contributions from the Bernard McDonough Foundation, Highmark West Virginia and the Sisters Health Foundation to the City Park splash pad project that were budgeted for the current fiscal year, which started July 1, but received before June 30, Finance Director Eric Jiles said.

“It’s increasing the fund balance (from the previous year) and reducing the expected donations,” he said.

The City Park Pool was closed this summer in anticipation of the work. Some remodeling is already under way, although the splash pad project itself is not expected to start until at least next month.

Another resolution would allocate $35,475 from the Community Development Block Grant budget to cover processing fees on the $1.5 million federal loan to demolish and replace fire station No. 2 at 16th and Covert streets. Jiles said he and Development Director Rickie Yeager “would like to use the CDBG funds to pay those fees so as not to reduce the available resources for the fire station project.”

Other resolutions would carry $56,541 not expended in the previous fiscal year on the planned demolitions of seven dilapidated houses into the new fiscal year so the work can be completed, add two recently approved grants to the budget and confirm the city’s intent to provide $12,500 for the Parkersburg Homecoming Festival’s fireworks display.

The agenda also includes a proclamation from Mayor Tom Joyce declaring Aug. 4 Esther Carr Watson Day in honor of Watson, who graduated from Howard University and returned to teach at her alma mater, Sumner School, in Parkersburg. She choreographed several productions at the Historic Smoot Theatre and worked with various youth organizations. While at Howard, Carr co-founded the Delta Sigma Theta sorority, a group of predominantly black, college-educated women with more than 1,000 collegiate and alumni chapters around the United States and beyond.

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Parkersburg City Council Meeting Agenda — 7:30 p.m. Tuesday

* Mayoral proclamation declaring Aug. 4 Ethel Carr Watson Day.

* Resolution revising the budget to reflect the award of a $17,975 grant for Police Department rifles and $3,000 for a protective fence at the Recycling Center.

* Resolution revising the budget to account for $56,541 in demolitions budgeted in the previous fiscal year.

* Resolution revising the budget to reflect $100,000 in donations for the splash park project received prior to June 30.

* Resolution confirming the original appropriation of $12,500 for the fireworks display be paid to the Parkersburg Homecoming Committee.

* Resolution amending the CDBG budget to cover $35,475 in credit subsidy costs for the Section 108 loan for the fire station No. 2 project.

* Final readings of four ordinances offering a 1.5 percent discount on the fire, floodwall, police and sanitation fees for paying for the full year in advance.

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