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PARKERSBURG -- Members of Parkersburg City Council will consider ordinances enacting previously budgeted pay raises and a sanitation fee increase, as well as a resolution limiting discussion in the public forum to agenda items only.
The meeting is slated for 7:30 p.m. Tuesday in council chambers on the second floor of the Municipal Building.
For the 2023-24 fiscal year, which starts July 1, Mayor Tom Joyce proposed a 4.2% pay increase for all city employees except elected officials. The funds were included in the budget approved by council on a 6-2 vote in March. While some positions have salary ranges that can be adjusted without legislative action, civil service jobs like police and firefighters and part-time positions must be changed by ordinance.
That ordinance is on first reading, along with one increasing the monthly sanitation fee from $16 to $18. During the March budget hearings, Joyce said the first sanitation fee hike since 2009 is needed after the general fund was expected to subsidize the sanitation fund by about $276,000 this fiscal year. The fee increase is projected to generate $270,000.
The only other ordinance on the agenda is the final reading of a change to a job title in the floodwall department.
A resolution would amend council's rules for the public forum, during which half an hour is allotted to allow people to speak for up to three minutes. If the resolution is approved, they could only address items on that meeting's agenda.
"Too much time is being taken up on things that (don't) pertain to City Council," said Council President Sharon Kuhl, citing as one example concerns raised about the Resiliency Center being built by Wood County. "We have no control over that."
Kuhl is a sponsor of the resolution, along with Councilwoman Jesse Cottrille and Councilman Mike Reynolds.
"If anyone has anything else to discuss, other than what's on the agenda, they need to contact their city councilperson," Kuhl said.
"Bringing it before council, we can't even say anything back to them," she said, citing council rules that prevent members from answering questions during the forum.
Kuhl said if people aren't sure who their council representative is, members will be glad to help them get to the right person.
Councilman J.R. Carpenter called the proposal "a good idea to streamline meetings, but that's not our purpose.
"To disengage from the citizens from having an opportunity to discuss anything on their mind involving the city … I believe that to be wrong," he said. "I think that's our job, to listen to the citizens."
Carpenter said not being able to bring something up in the public forum prevents it from being announced publicly. He said he's learned of issues he didn't know about by people raising them in the public forum.
"There can be great ideas. There could be a problem in their neighborhood nobody's aware of," Carpenter said.
In 2017, the public forum was split into two sessions, one for agenda items at the start of the meeting and one toward the end for other topics. Members voted to return to a single forum later that year with a limit of two minutes per speaker.
In early 2018, a resolution to require speakers to sign in was amended to limit topics to agenda items and give each speaker up to five minutes. They changed it two months later, moving it back to three minutes and not limiting topics.
Five members of that council remain on the legislative body.
Another resolution on Tuesday's agenda would approve an addendum to the memorandum of understanding regarding funds from the state's settlement of opioid litigation.
In the initial agreement, money would have been split 60-40 between the city and county, respectively. A memo from City Attorney Blaine Myers said the county filed an objection and mediation between the parties yielded a 55-45 split.
Evan Bevins can be reached at ebevins@newsandsentinel.com.
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Meeting Notes
* Parkersburg City Council will meet at 7:30 p.m. Tuesday in council chambers on the second floor of the Municipal Building.
* The agenda includes the first reading of ordinances authorizing a 4.2% pay increase for employees whose salaries are adjusted by statute to match the raise granted to all city employees except elected officials and a $2-a-month sanitation fee increase.
* A resolution on the agenda would amend council rules so only items on the agenda could be discussed during the public forum.
* Another resolution would amend the terms of a memorandum of understanding governing the disbursement of opioid settlement funds between the city and Wood County.