City Council

December 18, 2018 The regular meeting of the City Council of the City of Fairmont was held at 7:00 p.m. on the 18th day of December, 2018, at the Public Safety Building located at 500 Quincy Street in Fairmont, West Virginia. Mayor Mainella called the meeting to order. Councilmembers present were: First District Marianne Moran Second District Frank G. Yann Third District Karl (David) Kennedy Fourth District Kenneth (Brad) Merrifield Fifth District Fran Warner Seventh District Philip R. (Phil) Mason Eighth District Thomas (Tom) Mainella Ninth District Ronald J. (Ron) Straight, Sr. Absent Sixth District Dora Kay Grubb Also present were: City Manager Robin I. Gomez Interim City Manager Bruce McDaniel City Attorney Kevin Sansalone City Clerk Janet L. Keller Police Chief Steve Shine Fire Chief Edward Simmons City Planner Sandra Scaffidi IN RE: OPENING CEREMONIES Bob Pirner gave the invocation followed by the Pledge of Allegiance to the Flag led by Councilmember Warner. APPROVAL OF MINUTES Mayor Mainella noted that each member of Council had received a copy of the minutes from the Regular Meeting held on December 11, 2018. Councilmember Moran moved to approve the minutes as submitted. The 1 motion was seconded by Councilmember Straight. The Mayor declared the minutes approved as submitted by voice vote of Council. PUBLIC HEARINGS No public hearings were scheduled for this meeting. ANNOUNCEMENTS IN RE: BRUCE MCDANIEL, INTERIM CITY MANAGER Mayor Mainella introduced Bruce McDaniel, the Interim City Manager, who will be taking over at 4:31 p.m. this Friday afternoon when Mr. Gomez’s resignation is official. He thanked Bruce for his willingness to serve as Interim City Manager. IN RE: LAST COUNCIL MEETING Councilmember Straight stated that this was his last Council meeting and said that it has been a pleasure serving the citizens of Fairmont. He wished everyone well and said to keep on moving Fairmont forward. Mayor Mainella said that Councilmember Straight has spent 24 years on City Council. He noted that he’s got to be the longest-serving Councilmember since this Council form of government was established. He thanked him for his service. Councilmember Mason noted that he will miss the people leaving the Council. Councilmember Warner also said that this is her last night on City Council. She thanked the citizens of Fairmont for allowing her to serve for 12 years and she has loved every minute of it. Councilmember Moran stated that this is her last night as well, if the election gets straightened around. She thanked the voters of the City of Fairmont for giving her the opportunity to serve for the last four years. She said it has been an honor to work with the City Manager and the Councilmembers, saying it was a good working relationship. Councilmember Yann said that when he started on Council, Ron Straight was the Mayor and now Ron is leaving Council as his friend. 2 Councilmember Merrifield said that it has been a pleasure working with the people that are leaving. Mayor Mainella said it was a please to serve with Councilmember Straight, Moran and Warner. He then thanked them for their service. IN RE: HUMAN RIGHTS COMMISSION Councilmember Moran thanked everyone who worked tirelessly on the Human Rights Commission ordinance and the campaign to get it passed at the polls. In the end, love won, she said. IN RE: MERRY CHRISTMAS All Councilmembers wished everyone a Merry Christmas and a blessed New Year. IN RE: ROBIN GOMEZ COMMENDED The Mayor said thank you to Mr. Gomez for what he has done for the City of Fairmont. He said he legacy will live on everywhere from the little things like the four-way stops that should have been done years ago to the many, many vacant lots all over town where dilapidated, decrepit, terrible, junky, unsafe buildings stood that are now cleared out and grass is growing on them. He said thank you for that and everything else that he did. CITIZENS PETITIONS IN RE: SALARY INCREASE REQUESTED FOR FIREFIGHTERS DAVID WHITEMAN, President of IAFF Local 318 and Captain in the Fairmont Fire Department, addressed Council requesting a pay increase for all fire department personnel. He said he is attempting to resolve a problem that has taken several years to evolve. He explained that he has been employed by the Fairmont Fire Department for 29 years and has been President of Local 318 for most of that time. He said that he has insight from other cities throughout the State. Early in his career, the Fairmont Fire Department was paid equal to or better than all cities in this State but this is no longer true. Our salaries have been neglected to the point to where they are so far in the rear, the department is having trouble retaining good solid capable recruits. He said a good example is that the youngest firefighter on his shift has seven years seniority and he is the only one of the last six that has stayed, it has been a revolving door. He said that he just lost the latest recruit from his shift to the City of Bridgeport and the reason was for higher pay. We are behind our sister 3 cities of Morgantown, Clarksburg, Bridgeport by as much as $5,000 or more. He then passed out a spread sheet to Council with the salaries. He said this needs to change. He believes that they have been tolerant but today, with the street paving funding in place, the 1% sales tax, and a contingency fund well above the national average, he thought it was time to take care of the employees. He went on to say that during this budget time, he is asking Council to give the firefighters the same consideration he was hoping that they are giving the Police Department and allow Fairmont to obtain and train employees capable of providing the citizens of this city with the emergency services they need and deserve. CITY MANAGER’S REPORT IN RE: CITY MANAGER’S LAST MEETING Mr. Gomez said he would like to thank everybody he ever met in Fairmont. He said his time in the City has been a wild and wonderful three years. He then thanked everybody for everything that’s happened. He said that he has enjoyed every day through all the triumphs and tribulations. IN RE: FIRE DEPARTMENT UPDATE Fire Chief Ed Simmons gave a report on the operations of the Fire Department. He said that he has served as the Chief for almost three years and has had the pleasure of working with Mr. Gomez during this time. The Chief said Dave Whiteman, the President of Local 318, said things here tonight that needed to be said for a long time. For 122 years, paid firefighters has protected the citizens of the City of Fairmont, 24 hours a day, 365 days a year. He said they responded to over 3,000 calls for service this past year. Of those 3,000 calls, 46 of those calls have been structure fires and out of those 46 structure fire calls, 16 have actually been burning fires that caused $920,000 worth of damage. He noted that they saved almost $3 million worth of damage on those 16 fires. They responded to over 1,600 EMS calls which were all true emergencies. The Chief said they don’t ask for praise but what they do need is resources and support and if Council really supports these guys, he asked them to give them the pay increases that they deserve. He said three years ago Council promised pay increases over three years to get parity with the Police Department, they are in the third year of that and he said the guys deserve it. He begged Council to go through with it. He then told Council if they don’t see them on the front page of the newspaper and see the trucks out that is a good thing because they put the fires out when 4 they are small. Councilmember Merrifield asked the Chief what he would estimate the cost to be of training a firefighter and then losing them to another city. The Chief replied that we do have our own training officer but it takes at least 120 hours of time for training. The problem is that we have one training officer to do this and if he is taking his time up to continuously train recruits, then he is getting away from the other line guys and the ISO ratings will be affected down the road because he can’t get in all the training that is required for all of the other guys. He said that a monetary value, he would guess $4,000 to $5,000 at a minimum. The Chief then stated that he was against the new pension plan and he understands why Council did it but it killed the recruitment. There is no reason for personnel to stay in the fire department now because they can go somewhere down the road and take their pension with them. For retention, it’s going to kill us unless we get wages that is comparable to the City that they are going to. Mr. Gomez responded by saying that we have made, in the last three years, some salary adjustments across the City and the majority have been in Fire, Police, and Utilities as well as provided a raise every year 3%, 1%, and 1%. We are still behind our neighboring jurisdictions which does make it difficult to compete going forward. He noted there are other variables impacting decisions as to whether younger people decide to go into a career just to work in local government alone but we are not getting nationwide the number of applicants that want to be firefighters or police officers. We can try to control to get closer to our neighboring and competing jurisdictions and there is still more to be done. We are in year three of a plan or a proposal to try to get closer to those cities and we are getting there but still a couple more years away or one year depending on how the budget proceeds in the next few months. IN RE: POLICE DEPARTMENT UPDATE Chief Shine gave a report on the operations of the Police Department. He reported that the Police Department has had over 22,000 calls with more than 43,000 responses. He hired 12 people this year and sent eight through the Police Academy and hired three that were already certified. He noted that he has one that still needs to go through the Academy and are still three people short. He said, unlike the Fire Department, you want to us out there and a lot of times because of paperwork and reports and arrests, we are not able to 5 be seen as much as we want to be seen. He said, hopefully, a little more manpower will be sent our way in the near future. He went on to say that they have hired two officers as School Resource Officers through a grant and they are trying to fund their own jobs. They have pulled in about $100,000 in grants between State, local and Federal grants. He reported that they still only have about three officers on shift at any given time so they need some help too. He said they have had over 1,300 arrests last year, 180 felony arrests and two people under arrest right now with a three-man shift. He noted that it makes it hard to provide for the City of Fairmont but we have great partnerships with FSU Campus Police, Whitehall Police, Marion County Sheriff’s Office and the State Police. The citizens always get a response but it may not be from the City Police because we have to rely on neighboring jurisdictions and we help them out when we can through mutual aid assistance agreements. The Chief then said, unfortunately, he still goes on calls and still arrests people. He then apologized when reports come in late because he is working on other things. Last Friday, two recruits graduated from the WV State Police Academy and we have our first certified female since Officer Corbin left us for another job. We are still actively recruiting. We have given four civil service tests this year with four people passing the last one and zero people passed the one before that because of our inability to recruit and attract employees or applicants. He noted that we are going through this list and still not be at full staff. He said that we will be announcing another test in January, five tests within a year. Mr. Gomez said that he is very honored to work with two Chiefs who actually do go out and work. Council and the citizens should be very honored and very proud to have both of them as the Chiefs. Mayor Mainella said that, in January of 2017, this Council made a commitment to empower the City Manager to take a closer look at bad buildings and put an emphasis on demolition. He said that those members of Council that are still going to be here, we need to make a commitment to these first responders to do everything we can to get this pay arranged so it is not a revolving door. The Mayor said that they have his commitment and he can’t speak for everybody else, but let’s get the ball rolling to see what we can do. It’s very important and we very much appreciate what firefighters and the police officers do. 6  CONSIDERATION OF COUNCIL BUSINESS IN RE: TWO RE-APPOINTMENTS, MARION COUNTY PARKS AND RECREATION COMMISSION, THREE YEAR TERMS TO END DECEMBER 31, 2021 Mayor Mainella entertained a motion for two re-appointments to the Marion County Parks and Recreation Commission for three-year terms to end December 31, 2021. Motion: Councilmember Yann moved to re-appoint Jennifer Trippett and J. Phillip Burton to the Marion County Parks and Recreation Commission for three-year terms to end December 31, 2021. The motion was seconded by Councilmember Mason. Roll call was taken by the Clerk. The Mayor declared Jennifer Trippett and J. Phillip Burton re-appointed to the Marion County Parks and Recreation Commission for three-year terms to end December 31, 2021 by unanimous vote of those Councilmembers present. IN RE: TWO RE-APPOINTMENTS, BOARD OF ZONING APPEALS, THREE- YEAR TERMS TO END JANUARY 1, 2022 Mayor Mainella entertained a motion for two re-appointments to the Board of Zoning Appeals for three-year terms to end January 1, 2022. Motion: Councilmember Moran moved to re-appoint Gia Deasy and Aron Majic to the Board of Zoning Appeals for three-year terms to end January 1, 2022. The motion was seconded by Councilmember Straight. Roll call was taken by the Clerk. The Mayor declared Gia Deasy and Aron Majic re-appointed to the Board of Zoning Appeals for three-year terms to end January 1, 2022 by unanimous vote of those Councilmembers present. IN RE: THREE RE-APPOINTMENTS, HISTORIC PRESERVATION REVIEW COMMISSION, THREE-YEAR TERMS TO END JANUARY 1, 2022 7 Mayor Mainella entertained a motion for three re-appointments to the Historic Preservation Review Commission for three-year terms to end January 1, 2022. Motion: Councilmember Straight moved to re-appoint Anne Bolyard, Mike Jura and Madelaine Shultz to the Historic Preservation Review Commission for three- year terms to end January 1, 2022. The motion was seconded by Councilmember Yann. Roll call was taken by the Clerk. The Mayor declared Anne Bolyard, Mike Jura and Madelaine Shultz re- appointed to the Historic Preservation Review Commission for three-year terms to end January 1, 2022 by unanimous vote of those Councilmembers present. IN RE: RECOGNIZE OUTGOING COUNCIL MEMBERS Mayor Mainella and City Manager Gomez recognized the outgoing Councilmembers: Marianne Moran, Fran Warner, Ron Straight and former Councilmember Warren Harger. The Mayor presented them with a plaque of recognition as well as some acknowledging words. He thanked them for their service to the City of Fairmont. ADJOURNMENT The Mayor entertained a motion for adjournment. Motion: Councilmember Mason moved to adjourn the meeting. The motion was seconded by Councilmember Straight. The Mayor declared the meeting adjourned by voice vote of Council at 7:35 p.m. 8