City Council

November 12, 2014 The regular meeting of the City Council of the City of Fairmont was held at 7:00 p.m. on the 12th day of November, 2014, at the Public Safety Building located at 500 Quincy Street in Fairmont, West Virginia. Mayor Straight called the meeting to order. Councilmembers present were: First District Robert D. (Bob) Gribben Second District Frank G. Yann Third District Deborah D. (Debbie) Seifrit Fourth District William H. (Bill) Burdick Fifth District Charles E. (Chuck) Warner Sixth District Daniel K. (Dan) Weber Seventh District James B. (Jamie) Greene Eighth District Robin W. Smith Ninth District Ronald J. (Ron) Straight, Sr. Also present were: City Manager Jay Rogers City Clerk Janet L. Keller City Attorney Kevin V. Sansalone Councilmember-Elect Marianne Moran Councilmember-Elect Philip Mason IN RE: OPENING CEREMONIES Rev. Elise Neal of the First Presbyterian Church gave the invocation followed by the Pledge of Allegiance to the Flag led by Councilmember Smith. APPROVAL OF MINUTES Mayor Straight noted that each member of Council had received a copy of the minutes from the Regular Meeting held on October 28, 2014. He asked if there were any corrections, deletions, or amendments. Councilmember Warner moved to approve the minutes as submitted. The motion was seconded by Councilmember Greene. The Mayor declared the minutes approved as submitted by voice vote of 1 Council. PUBLIC HEARINGS IN RE: AN ORDINANCE AMENDING AND SUPPLEMENTING THE PROVISIONS OF PART ONE-ADMINISTRATIVE CODE, CHAPTER SEVEN- BOARDS, COMMISSIONS AND AUTHORITIES, ARTICLE 171 PARKING AUTHORITY, SECTION .08 RATES, THEREOF, TO APPLY THE EXISTING PARKING METER RATES TO ALL METERED PARKING Pursuant to a notice duly published in the Times-West Virginian on November 3, 2014, a public hearing was convened to obtain citizen input on an ordinance to apply the existing parking meter rates to all metered parking. The Mayor asked if anyone present desired to speak to the proposed ordinance. JAY ROGERS, City Manager, spoke in favor of the proposed ordinance. He said that the Parking Authority recommended this action to City Council. He explained that on October 22, 2014 they made this recommendation. He said the current code only allows for parking meters to be established on street and the Parking Authority has recommended, with the paving of the Post Office parking lot, that lot be metered along with other lots in the future. He said that for the Post Office parking lot, which is owned by the City, four spaces will still be 20 minute free parking and the other parking spaces will have meters on them. He said that the Parking Authority has had a hard time finding people that have just continued to sit on those spaces all day long while they get free parking. He said that we have businesses that are starting to generate a lot of activity in that area and have talked to the Parking Authority about the need to be able to turn those spaces over to get customers in and customers out. He went on to say that our current ordinance does not allow meters to be placed anywhere except for on-street so this ordinance will allow those to go in the lot. Councilmember Weber asked if the Post Office parking lot will be part of this. Mr. Rogers replied yes. He stated that is the one that they are looking at now. 2 Councilmember Gribben said that he would like to have some information on the rates. The City Manager said that are listed in the proposed ordinance. He said one hour parking is 10 cents for 10 minutes, 25 cents for 30 minutes, two hour parking is 10 cents for 20 minutes and 25 cents for one hour. He said that this ordinance does not change any of the rates; these are the rates that currently exist for all of our meters. He stated that this ordinance only allows us to place meters in the lots instead of on the street. Councilmember Seifrit asked about parking for the new State Office Complex that is being built. She noted that some people may have to be here for more than two hours and it is not fair if they get a ticket. She then asked about parking for jurors. Mr. Rogers responded by saying that we already have designated juror parking. Councilmember Seifrit asked again about parking for the State Office Complex. Councilmember Warner replied that they can park in the parking garage. Mr. Rogers said that if they are going to be there longer than two hours, the parking garage is where you would want them moved to where they have the ability to park all day. He then said that the Parking Authority has taken a look at the ability to help regulate some of our parking lots to make sure that customers or patrons are not parking in the spaces for extended periods of time and not giving other customers the ability to be able to patronize some places. He then mentioned that they should move to the parking garage for all day parking. Councilmember Seifrit asked if we will still have parking spaces left over even when the State takes some of the spaces. Mr. Rogers replied yes. Councilmember Gribben asked what the frequency is for the attendants making their rounds. 3 Mr. Rogers replied that we have a full-time attendant and a part-time attendant and they work on a rotating basis to try to avoid people knowing what time they make their rounds. He noted that they vary their schedule as far as days. He went on to explain that our collections are up so people are putting money into the meters which means that penalties are down. He then noted that he cannot tell how many times they pass a certain address. Mr. Rogers then told Council that the enforcement and the collection has improved since we brought the part-time person on as well. He then mentioned that we now have enforcement capabilities, because of recent changes in the State law, that allows those individuals in a vehicle and do parking enforcement in other areas besides downtown. Councilmember Burdick asked if the ordinance refers to time limitations. Mr. Rogers noted that was not contained in this ordinance. He mentioned that is addressed in the general parking section of the Code that only goes Monday through Friday up to 5:00 p.m. The Mayor said that anything after 5:00 p.m. is not enforced. There being no one else to speak, the public hearing was called to a close at 7:10 p.m. ANNOUNCEMENTS IN RE: WONDERFUL WEST VIRGINIA MAGAZINE Councilmember Yann reported that there is a very good two-page article on Fairmont in the Wonderful West Virginia Magazine. IN RE: CONGRATULATIONS TO KATE GREENE Councilmember Seifrit extended congratulations to Kate Greene, Main Street Director, for the grant that was approved in the amount of $85,000 to help the City of Fairmont. IN RE: ELECTION RESULTS Councilmember Burdick mentioned the election results and extended congratulations to Mayor Straight and Councilmember Yann on their re- 4 elections. He then extended congratulations to Councilmember-Elect Moran and Mason. Councilmember Smith extended congratulations to all of those elected to City Council. Councilmember Greene extended congratulations to Phil Mason for his victory in the 7th District. He then thanked Council for allowing him the opportunity to serve the City of Fairmont. IN RE: PENSION PLANS Councilmember Burdick noted that there was an article in the WV State Journal that showed the pension liability in the State. He then challenged Council to look at this issue before it totally takes over our budget. Councilmember Weber said that if you read the article, it is quite frightening to look at some of the other cities, other than Fairmont, that are in the $250 million shortfall for their pension funds. He said that Council really needs to seriously think about this and it is a dangerous situation. IN RE: ELECTION SIGNS Councilmember Warner asked all politicians to remove their campaign signs since the election is over now. IN RE: VETERANS DAY CELEBRATION Mayor Straight reported that he attended Veterans Day festivities and attended the Vietnam Memorial. He mentioned that he got to meet the Presidential Gold Recipient that was originally from Fairmont. CITIZENS PETITIONS IN RE: COAL CAMP MEMORIES MARY REED-RICHARDS, representing the Arts and Humanities Commission, addressed Council regarding an annual performance in coordination with the National Coal Swap. She said they are presenting an evening with Karen Vuranch on Friday, December 5. She explained that Ms. Vuranch will tell a tale entitled Coal Camp Memories which is about a woman who loses her 5 husband in a coal mining accident. She said the event will be held at the Life United Methodist Church on Mary Lou Retton Drive at 7:00 p.m. and is open to the public. CITY MANAGER’S REPORT IN RE: FALL PAVING UPDATE Mr. Rogers presented Council with an update on the fall paving project. He reported that the fall paving project cost $947,695.19 and that equated to 10,607 tons of asphalt and they paved approximately 8.2 miles. IN RE: UTILITY UPDATE The Manager mentioned a couple issues with the Utilities. He said there have been some water line breaks and boil water advisories for Mary Lou Retton from Fairmont Avenue to Shirlane Avenue, Westchester from Route 19 to Hallhurst Drive and in Barrackville from Pike Street to Saxman Street. He the stated that there is a water leak on Fairmont Avenue at the intersection of First Street that is scheduled to be repaired. IN RE: WEBSITE FEATURE Mr. Rogers said that one of the new features on the City’s new website is “Notify Me” and this will give you the ability to go in and sign up for an email or a text alert any time we have a boil water advisory, a street closure, or any other type of event that would come up. He then mentioned that will be a link that we will use with Republic Services when garbage service will not run because of the winter. He then explained how to sign up for this feature. IN RE: PARKING GARAGE Councilmember Yann asked about the lighting and other concerns that he had previously reported about the parking garage. Mr. Rogers explained that we had some problems with the garage. He said several of the lights had actually cracked and caused some of the bulbs to be missing contact. He noted that a lot of those have been replaced. He then 6 said that the next phase that we are going to go through is to see if we can put some of those lights on timers. Councilmember Yann asked about calling an attendant if there is a problem in the parking garage. The City Manager said that he spoke to the Fire Chief about that and he assured him that had to have been something that a glitch had to have happened. He noted that when someone calls for an attendant, it comes directly to the Fire Department. IN RE: STREET LIGHT OUTAGES The Manager said that they had called Mon Power today regarding various outages throughout the city. He noted that they are continuing to make repetitive calls to Mon Power to get those fixed. CONSIDERATION OF COUNCIL BUSINESS IN RE: ADOPTION, AN ORDINANCE AMENDING AND SUPPLEMENTING THE PROVISIONS OF PART ONE-ADMINISTRATIVE CODE, CHAPTER SEVEN- BOARDS, COMMISSIONS AND AUTHORITIES, ARTICLE 171 PARKING AUTHORITY, SECTION .08 RATES, THEREOF, TO APPLY THE EXISTING PARKING METER RATES TO ALL METERED PARKING Mayor Straight entertained a motion for the adoption of an ordinance to apply the existing parking meter rates to all metered parking. Motion: Councilmember Warner moved for the adoption of the proposed ordinance. The motion was seconded by Councilmember Greene. Roll call was taken by the Clerk. The Mayor declared the ordinance adopted by unanimous vote of Council and the ordinance designated as Ordinance No. 1631 was duly adopted. IN RE: ADOPTION, RESOLUTION OF THE COUNCIL FOR THE CITY OF FAIRMONT ENDORSING THE NINTH ANNUAL FEAST OF THE SEVEN FISHES FESTIVAL SPONSORED BY MAIN STREET FAIRMONT, INC., TO BE HELD IN THE CITY OF FAIRMONT’S DOWNTOWN HISTORIC DISTRICT ON 7 SATURDAY, DECEMBER 13, 2014 Mayor Straight entertained a motion for the adoption of a resolution endorsing the ninth annual Feast of the Seven Fishes Festival to be held in downtown Fairmont on Saturday, December 13, 2014. Motion: Councilmember Seifrit moved for the adoption of the proposed resolution and the reading of a synopsis in lieu of the entire resolution. The motion was seconded by Councilmember Smith. The Clerk read the proposed resolution by synopsis for the first time. Roll call was taken by the Clerk. The Mayor declared the resolution adopted by unanimous vote of Council. IN RE: ADOPTION, A RESOLUTION TO RESCHEDULE THE REGULAR CITY COUNCIL MEETING OF DECEMBER 23, 2014 TO DECEMBER 16, 2014 Mayor Straight entertained a motion for the adoption of a resolution to reschedule the December 23, 2014 to December 16, 2014. Motion: Councilmember Warner moved for the adoption of the proposed resolution. The motion was seconded by Councilmember Greene. The Clerk read the proposed resolution for the first time. Roll call was taken by the Clerk. The Mayor declared the resolution adopted by unanimous vote of Council. ADJOURNMENT The Mayor entertained a motion for adjournment. Motion: Councilmember Smith moved to adjourn the meeting. The motion was seconded by Councilmember Warner. The Mayor declared the meeting adjourned by voice vote of Council at 7:33 8 p.m. 9