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WHEELING - The current Wheeling City Council will hold the first meeting of its final month in office tonight before the new council takes office to begin a new four-year term in July. They'll fill that meeting with discussion of flood expenses and seven-figure chemical purchases.
The current panel’s penultimate council meeting will begin at 5:30 p.m. on the first floor of the City-County Building on Chapline Street downtown.
New legislation slated for a first reading tonight includes the routine purchases of various chemicals for the city’s water and sewage treatment facilities. In total, more than $1 million in chemical purchases for use in the treatment plants are on tap from various suppliers throughout the country.
Council is also set to hear first readings on new ordinances related to cleanup and repairs in connection with the April floods. This will be the third meeting in a row in which new legislation related to flood expenses has been introduced.
The new ordinances scheduled for first readings tonight include contracts in the amount of $42,384 and $66,960 with Grade 8 Solutions LLC of Warren, Ohio for the purchase and replacement of air compressors and grit blowers that were destroyed in the flood.
Another new ordinance slated for a first reading tonight will be a $30,292 contract with ERB Electric Company of Wheeling for flood repair services. An ordinance for emergency flood-related slip repairs near the water tank near Washington Farms brings a $98,805 contract with Ohio-West Virginia Excavating of Powhatan Point to the floor, and an emergency dock repair in the amount of $46,834 with American Muscle Docks and Fabrication of Wellsburg is set to be introduced. The docks at the Wheeling Island Marina were washed away in the flood, and American Muscle Docks worked with Beavers Marine to replace them last week.
Tonight, a total of $196,414 in flood-related ordinances appear on the agenda for first readings, while council is slated to hear second readings and take a final vote on a handful of other ordinances related to flood repair and cleanup totaling around $157,331.
Last month, council approved nearly $104,548 in flood-related expenses, for a grand total of more than $458,293 in costs associated with the April floods.
A federal disaster declaration was issued by President Joe Biden last month, and the city is expected to be eligible for reimbursement from the Federal Emergency Management Agency for these expenses. Until then, the city will be using funding sources ranging from the Water Department, Water Pollution Control Division and Restricted Capital Improvement Program funds to cover the costs.
"The presidential declaration makes those expenses eligible for FEMA reimbursement," Wheeling City Manager Robert Herron said this week, noting that they are all flood-related expenses for public facilities. "We have already had Zoom meetings on the process."
Also tonight, the city is introducing an ordinance to authorize the city manager to spend $75,080 with Dagostino Electronic Services of Pittsburgh for network cybersecurity upgrades to be charged to the city’s general fund.
More than a dozen pieces of legislation are scheduled for a second reading and a vote before council tonight, including an ordinance authorizing the expenditure of $150,000 from the city’s opioid settlement money from the state with a collaborative abatement-related effort by Laughlin Memorial Chapel, the Soup Kitchen of Greater Wheeling, the Greater Wheeling Coalition for the Homeless, the Ohio County Family Resource Network, the Life Hub and the Catholic Charities Neighborhood Resource Center.
Following tonight’s meeting, the next meeting of Wheeling City Council is scheduled to take place on June 18. This will be the final meeting for current Mayor Glenn Elliott, who is finishing his second term and is stepping down from the seat because of term limits. The next meeting will also be the last council session for Vice Mayor Chad Thalman - who has also served as the city’s Ward 1 councilman for the past eight years, and Ward 3 Counselor Rosemary Ketchum, both of whom ran unsuccessfully in the race to become Wheeling’s next mayor.
Current council members Ben Seidler, Jerry Sklavounakis, Ty Thorngate and Dave Palmer were successful in their bids for re-election. They will continue to serve the city alongside incoming council members Tony Assaro and Connie Cain, and mayor-elect Denny Magruder beginning in July.