(Meeting Updates - Photo Illustration - MetroCreativeConnection)

PARKERSBURG — The agenda for Tuesday’s Parkersburg City Council meeting has a lot in common with last week’s.

The regular meeting is a week earlier than usual due to the requirement in state code that the city lay its levy rate on the third Tuesday in April.

The agenda for the meeting, set for 7:30 p.m. Tuesday at the Municipal Building, includes two resolutions and an ordinance that appeared on the April 8 agenda but were not taken up before council members adjourned the meeting.

That meeting abruptly ended after council Vice President Roger Brown repeatedly asked Parkersburg resident Mary Goe to sit down as she spoke during the public forum. Running the meeting in the absence of council President Mike Reynolds, Brown said Goe was not abiding by a recently passed council rule requiring speakers in the public forum to address only topics on the agenda.

In an email to the News and Sentinel last week after the meeting, Goe said she was following the rule because she was speaking about the public forum itself, which is listed on the agenda. She said her intent was to thank council members for their service.

As Goe continued speaking, two council members made a motion to adjourn and one seconded. Then some members left the chambers while others remained seated.

Resolutions returning this week concern designating a portion of Southwood Park, across Belmont Road from the pond, as a bird sanctuary and moving the event tent at the park to the welcome center on Ann Street operated by the Greater Parkersburg Convention and Visitors Bureau.

An ordinance expanding the dates of the Public Outdoor Designated Area downtown to year-round is set for first reading. Authorized last year by council, the PODA ordinance allows people to purchase alcohol in marked, recyclable cups from participating businesses and carry them between businesses between Third and Ninth and One-Half streets.

New to the agenda is a resolution authorizing the reallocation of $150,000 in Community Development Block Grant funds from supporting construction of a new community health center to the residential assisted demolition program.

A memo included with the agenda says Coplin Health Systems informed the city that the health center project — intended to build a facility to provide primary care, dental health, behavioral health and pharmaceutical services to patients regardless of their ability to pay — has been put on hold for 2025.

The residential assisted demolition program is aimed at helping property owners remove blighted structures and has greater demand than funding available, the memo says.