City Council

December 17, 2019 The regular meeting of the City Council of the City of Fairmont was held at 7:00 p.m. on the 17th day of December, 2019, at the Public Safety Building located at 500 Quincy Street in Fairmont, West Virginia. Mayor Merrifield called the meeting to order. Councilmembers present were: First District Joshua D. (Josh) Rice Second District Frank G. Yann Third District Karl (David) Kennedy Fourth District Kenneth (Brad) Merrifield Fifth District Barry H. Bledsoe Sixth District Dora Kay Grubb Seventh District Philip R. (Phil) Mason Eighth District Thomas (Tom) Mainella Ninth District Donna M. Blood Also present were: City Manager Valerie Means City Attorney Kevin Sansalone City Clerk Janet L. Keller Fire Chief Ed Simmons Police Chief Steve Shine City Planner Mark Miller Program Manager Alex Petry IN RE: OPENING CEREMONIES Rev. D.D. Meighen gave the invocation followed by the Pledge of Allegiance to the Flag led by Councilmember Bledsoe. APPROVAL OF MINUTES Mayor Merrifield noted that each member of Council had received a copy of the minutes from the Regular Meeting held on December 10, 2019. Councilmember Bledsoe moved to approve the minutes as submitted. The motion was seconded by Councilmember Blood. The Mayor declared the minutes approved as submitted by voice vote of 1 Council. PUBLIC HEARINGS No public hearings were scheduled for this meeting. ANNOUNCEMENTS IN RE: MERRY CHRISTMAS Since this was the last Council meeting for the year, Councilmembers wished everyone a Merry Christmas and a Happy New Year. IN RE: FEAST OF SEVEN FISHES FESTIVAL Councilmember Grubb reported that the Feast of Seven Fishes Festival was outstanding. She noted that it was the best one Fairmont has ever had and it was very impressive at Arts and Antiques with the jazz band. Councilmember Blood noted that the Feast was wonderful. The Mayor said the Feast was a great time and the food was excellent. CITIZENS PETITIONS IN RE: COMMUNITY UPDATE REV. D.D. MEIGHEN, 3 Park Drive, addressed Council said that as of today, 85% has fulfilled the pledge of reconciliation, 36 days of 42 to support the downtown schools, shops, and services and support the Fairmont Friendship Room has been quite successful. He went on to say that there has been an overwhelming posivitive response to both efforts. Over 85% has been a positive response to the Friendship in its location. The joy of the Feast of the Seven Fishes Festival and the Shop Small Business Saturday is evident in newspspaer stories and personal testiment. The goal should be to try to make every day a replica of the Feast of the Seven Fishes or Shop Small Saturday. Our pledge of reconciliation is attempting to do that with good effort. Positive approach has brought lots of people downtown every day. Rev. Meighen said that for the special 200th anniversary of the City, there will be a special worship service on January 12th at 10:30 a.m. at First Presbyterian Church. The highlight of this service will be to trace 200 years through the eyes of seven people that will illustrate what has happened in 2 Fairmont over these past 200 years. CITY MANAGER’S REPORT IN RE: NEXT MEETING OF COUNCIL The City Manager reported that the next meeting of Council will be held on January 14th. IN RE: FEAST OF SEVEN FISHES Ms. Means said that she attended her first Feast of Seven Fishes and despite the rain, the turnout was still good. The Manager passed along a big thank-you to all the many volunteers that worked so hard for that effort and to all of the city employees who worked to clean up the area before and after the event. IN RE: CEC TRAIL ANAYLSIS JIM CHRISTIE, with CEC (Civil & Environmental Consultants, Inc.) presented Council with the Cross Town Trail Connector Master Plan. He said the objective was to develop a route to connect the West Fork River Rail Trail to the south with the MC Trail to the north and complete the missing link of the P2P trail in Marion County. The routes through town to connect the two rail trails have been discussed many times before but this is the first time the City of Fairmont led a planning effort intended for a master planned route for the intention of following through with completing the trail connection. After a lengthy presentation, Council asked a few questions. Councilmember Mason asked about the estimated costs for Options A, B, and C of the plan. Mr. Christie replied that is one of the things they wanted to talk to Council about first to make sure everyone is excited about this project and that Council likes the routes that have been chosen. He said they will finalize those in two weeks and they are a little bit different. He said that he will give Council the broad picture and that is what the funding agency will be looking at but there are some areas like under the Route 250 Bridge that will take additional design. He said that they will put a number in there that they think will cover engineering, design, and construction but Council really won’t have a final number until you have done that design work. In that 3 scenario, he would be suggesting that Council go after the funding for the design portion first and then after you finish that a year later then you will go after the funding for the rest. Councilmember Mason asked if there is funding from the State level and maybe the Federal level as well. Mr. Christie stated yes, most of it will be at the State level, it is Federal dollars but it is administered through the State and there is also some Brownfield money and the idea is to take this information and layer those funds on top of each other. He noted that you want to leverage as much as you can with the public dollars to make that happen. Councilmember Mainella asked if the City had the authority to eminent domain property for rail trails. Mr. Christie said that is something right now that the rail trail conservancy is working through with the State. There is a law that does allow for it, the law is called Under-Utilized Properties and you will be seeing that come up in the future. The National Rail Trail Conservancy will be bring that to the forefront for WV and he’s sure they will be approaching Fairmont or Marion County. Councilmember Mainella said the CSX property is probably never ever going to be used. Mr. Christie noted that it is being used to store buses and things of that nature at this point. Councilmember Blood asked about the share the roads, are you going to have bike lanes since the roads are so narrow. Mr. Christie said there are ways to do it, there is a scientific way to do it. They engineer exactly where those shares are on the road and exactly where the signs go. He noted that Gaston Avenue was a busy road comparatively speaking to other areas but that is how we are going to help make it safe by putting everybody on one and manning that. There are opportunities to do other things but they are much more expensive. If you look at some of the other studies, they suggest it as well, is doing one way down Gaston and one way back Virginian. You can still get the same amount of parking you have. You could have bike lanes separated but you are talking about a lot more dollars and a much more expense. Right now you can finish it with doing the shared roads and signage. The Mayor noted that it would be the same as somebody riding their bike on 4 the main street except they are making it official with the markings. Mr. Christie said that you are not supposed to be riding bikes on sidewalks and our issue is that we, as drivers, think we own the road but people riding the bikes actually pay tax dollars as well. This is something as a society, when he worked oversees, it is a little bit different. They actually see that bike as transportation and he sees these trails as transportation because there are many people riding the bus systems that could easily just get on a bike and go to the city or to an event. He noted that this is just not all about recreation, it is also about transportation and that is where some of the funds come from. The Mayor said with the eminent domain issue, you really wouldn’t have to do eminent domain necessarily with what he has design for us. Mr. Christie replied that he would hope that we would not have to do that. He would hope that CSX would work with the City and private property as well. He said that the City would want to be a good steward and be part of the community and eminent domain is not that for a trail. He noted that we can work with property owners. He said there are a lot of ways with right-of- ways or easements and there is limited liability on them when we are talking about a pre-trail. He noted there is a law getting ready to take effect that would renew that liability. Councilmember Bledsoe asked Mr. Christie if he said that on Route 250 at the bridge, none of these routes go over Route 250, they all go under. Mr. Christie replied that is correct. Councilmember Bledsoe then asked how you get from, if you are going under the bridge, how do you get from under the bridge to Beverly Road. Mr. Christie said that you would have to have a little bit of a switchback to go down and a switchback to come back up. He noted that it was WV DOH property on both sides of the bridge and under the bridge. Councilmember Bledsoe asked if it was too steep to do that. Mr. Christie said again, you would have a switchback. He said that they do that quite a bit, they make ADA ramps, same with bike ramps. Councilmember Bledsoe said that he did not realize that MCPARC was working on the East Side but the key to both of them is still not to be a connecting trail unless we get that pedestrian bridge which may be a while 5 because of money. He then asked if there is a way to put this thing across the Third Street Bridge and then down into Palatine Park or is that not a possibility because of the design or who owns the bridge or whatever. Mr. Christie said that you can use the bridges for bikes. He said that his suggestion would be the Million Dollar Bridge, it is a little safer than the Third Street Bridge. As a designer, he would prefer the Million Dollar Bridge. Councilmember Bledsoe asked if there is room on the High Level Bridge/Million Dollar Bridge to put the bike lane. Mr. Christie said he would put it in the travel lanes and to share the road as opposed to another lane. He said that the bridges we have are kind of condensed at this point and he is not talking about the bridges yet because Council needs to introduce this to the community and showcase how it will work and get people to slow down and understand that pedestrians are going to be there. We dedicate them to one road right now. As this gets going, then we start to look at those crossings and the bridges. Seasoned riders will have no problem going over it. Councilmember Mason said if we are going to be looking for grants and funding from different entities, why not include the bridge. If we are going to think about a good product, why not think big and do it right rather than going up almost to a nice product and then stopping. He then asked why not look at the whole picture. Councilmember Mason said his next question is that CSX isn’t a problem just for us, how have other places dealt with CSX. Mr. Christie said that CSX has an ever changing way of doing work so you could be working with them for two years accessing property or acquiring property and then when that person leaves, the project stops and they start all over again. He noted that you have to just keep working at it. He said his way has always been let’s work beside them instead of with them. He said going back to the bridge question, it’s actually not part of his project currently but we have talked about that bridge, everybody has talked about that bridge, and the bridge had its own study. He would suggest that Council get the trail done first, the bridge itself is a big dollar item, a big endeavor. He would rather show all of these positives and the accomplishments to building that bridge because ultimately you want that bridge. Councilmember Bledsoe asked, if we went with Option A, which is the least expensive, how long would it take to get that implemented to actually be a 6 usable trail. Mr. Christie said that he thought you could do that this year. Councilmember Bledsoe said that we could get all of it but a little piece of that implemented by spring. Mr. Christie said absolutely. He said we are talking about signage, shared roads and then a public session to get that word out with marketing and explaining to people what we are doing, how you are doing it and why you are doing it. Councilmember Blood asked with the signage, would you lower the speed limit too. Mr. Christie stated that he would never guess on that. He noted that was actually a traffic analysis that you do. He said that was an engineer question and he would never guess just to say do that. He would have to utilize engineer numbers. CONSIDERATION OF COUNCIL BUSINESS IN RE: INTRODUCTION, FIRST READING, SET PUBLIC HEARING, AN ORDINANCE OF THE COUNCIL OF THE CITY OF FAIRMONT PROVIDING FOR AND AUTHORIZING THE PURCHASE OF THOSE CERTAIN PARCELS OF REAL ESTATE SITUATE IN THE CITY OF FAIRMONT, FAIRMONT DISTRICT, MARION COUNTY, WEST VIRGINIA, AND BEING PARCELS 94 AND 95 OF MARION COUNTY TAX MAP 3-1, AND MORE PARTICULARLY DESCRIBED IN THAT CERTAIN DEED DATED NOVEMBER 2, 1995, AND OF RECORD IN THE MARION COUNTY CLERK’S OFFICE IN DEED BOOK 929, AT PAGE 814 FROM HALLWOOD, L.C., A VIRGINIA LIMITED LIABILITY COMPANY; RATIFICATION Mayor Merrifield entertained a motion and second for the introduction of an ordinance authorizing the purchase of Parcels 94 and 95 of Tax Map 3-1 from Hallwood, L.C. (gravel parking lot at the corner of Adams Street and Monroe Street). Motion: Councilmember Rice moved for the introduction of the proposed ordinance. The motion was seconded by Councilmember Bledsoe. 7 The Clerk read the proposed ordinance by synopsis for the first time. The Mayor declared the public hearing set for January 14, 2020. IN RE: ADOPTION, A RESOLUTION OF THE COUNCIL FOR THE CITY OF FAIRMONT ENDORSING THE HOLLY BALL SPONSORED BY THE AUXILIARY TO UNITED HOSPITAL, INC., TO BE HELD AT THE ROBERT H. MOLLOHAN RESEARCH CENTER ON SATURDAY, FEBRUARY 15, 2020 Mayor Merrifield entertained a motion for the adoption of a resolution endorsing the Holly Ball sponsored by the Auxiliary to United Hospital to be held on February 15, 2020. Motion: Councilmember Mason moved for the adoption of the proposed ordinance. Councilmember Rice seconded the motion. Roll call was taken by the Clerk. The Mayor declared the ordinance adopted by unanimous vote of Council. IN RE: ONE RE-APPOINTMENT, BOARD OF ZONING APPEALS, THREE-YEAR TERM TO END JANUARY 1, 2023 Mayor Merrifield entertained a motion for one re-appointment to the Board of Zoning Appeals for a three-year term to end January 1, 2023. Councilmember Yann moved to re-appointment Anne Bolyard to the Board of Zoning Appeals for a term to end January 1, 2023. The motion was seconded by Councilmember Blood. Roll call was taken by the Clerk. The Mayor declared Anne Bolyard re-appointed to the Board of Zoning Appeals for a three-year term to end January 1, 2023 by unanimous vote of Council. IN RE: ONE RE-APPOIONTMENT, HISTORIC PRESERVATION REVIEW COMMISSION, THREE-YEAR TERM TO END JANUARY 1, 2023 Mayor Merrifield entertained a motion for one re-appointment to the Historic 8 Preservation Review Commission, for a three-year term to end January 1, 2023. Councilmember Mason moved to re-appoint Jason Wright to the Historic Preservation Review Commission for a three-year term to end January 1, 2023. The motion was seconded by Councilmember Mainella. Roll call was taken by the Clerk. The Mayor declared Jason Wright re-appointed to the Historic Preservation Review Commission for a three year term ending January 1, 2023 by unanimous vote of Council. IN RE: ADJOURN TO EXECUTIVE SESSION Mayor Merrifield moved that Council adjourn to Executive Session as per WV Code §6-9A-4(b)(2)(A) and City Charter 2.11 (a)(1)A – to consider matters arising from the appointment, employment, retirement, promotion, transfer, demotion, disciplining, resignation, discharge, dismissal or compensation of a City Officer. The motion was seconded by Councilmember Bledsoe. The Mayor declared the meeting adjourned to Executive Session by voice vote of Council at 7:52 p.m. He noted that no business will be taken after coming out of Executive Session. IN RE: MEETING RECONVENED The Mayor declared the meeting reconvened at 8:15 p.m. ADJOURNMENT The Mayor entertained a motion for adjournment. Motion: Councilmember Mainella moved to adjourn the meeting. The motion was seconded by Councilmember Bledsoe. The Mayor declared the meeting adjourned by voice vote of Council at 8:15 p.m. 9