City Beat 2-8-08

CITY BEAT

By George Murin
February 8, 2008

Washington- Friday February 1st came and went and Matt Staniszewski is still a city councilman. He was at the agenda meeting Monday and will probably attend February 7th’s regular council meeting. (I will report on this next week.) Mayor Sonny Spossey found out what we all knew that there is no way to remove him from council because of his D.U.I.s; although the mayor is still putting the pressure on. One of the items on the proposed agenda was for random drug tests for elected officials. Drug testing for the union protected employees will be addressed when their contracts expire.

Other items of interest on the proposed agenda were as follows:

Isiminger’s seems to have regained the towing contract for the city. City solicitor Lane Turturice was asked to draw up a new contract for council to review.

The minutes of the December council meetings may not be approved because Mayor Spossey and Councilman Terry Faust have problems with the vote to hire Sam Stockton as grant writer and parking director for the city; and the separation agreement for the ex-city solicitor Jeff Watson.

Accept addendums to the police and firemen’s contracts to address and standardize the health care coverage for the city.

Accept the retirement of Police Officer Dallas Williams as of January 21st.

Appoint Jonathan Inman to full time Meter Enforcement Officer. (This item was scratched from the agenda since both meter readers quit this week. This leaves the police force to write parking tickets until the meter readers are replaced.)

Long discussions took place on the city’s computers service contracts; paying the bills for road materials for the street department; will the street department pick up trash from receptacles placed in the city by the Highland-Erie group; If the city will give approval to a Guarding Angel chapter for Washington; Hiring new Policemen, and a firefighter; bonding of city officials; and re-align the combined pension board so that all members can attend.

The city then went into executive session for the following matters: Attorney fees, discussion of potential firefighter candidates and W&J College request to purchase a portion of Strawberry Alley.

The pending tax increase was not mentioned at the meeting. The final reading should take place on Thursday. This week I spoke with four business owners located in the city. All four would like to move from the city. Two of them that lease their buildings will move as soon as they find space elsewhere and the others would like to move if they could find buyers for their buildings. The higher taxes and the assessment for the new sidewalks are among their complaints. Another complaint is that the Main Street manager does nothing to help their businesses and NO new businesses have moved uptown to help draw new customers to their establishments. If this is the sentiment of the people who run businesses in the city, Washington could soon become a ghost town.

This week has been a sad week. It was one year ago that Fireman Jeremy LaBella was killed in a structure fire. A mass dedicated to him was held last Sunday at Saint Hilary’s Church. It was well attended by many of his brother firefighters and Mayor Spossey. On Monday, the anniversary of the fire, a wreath and flowers were laid at the tragic sight. May God hold Jeremy in his arms forever.