City Council

CITY OF MCKEESPORT REGULAR MEETING WEDNESDAY 7:00 P.M. NOVEMBER 1, 2017 This Meeting of Council was called to order on the above-stated date at the above-stated time after the Pledge of Allegiance and a Moment of Silence by President of Council Richard Dellapenna in memory of Mr. Bill Richards, Member of the Zoning Board and also President of the McKeesport Housing Corporation Board. Prayer was led by Rev. Karen Hecht from Highland Grove United Methodist Church. The following Members of Council were present: RC-1 PRESENT: JAMIE BREWSTER-FILOTEI, FAWN WALKER- MONTGOMERY, TIMOTHY BROWN, JIM BARRY, KEITH SOLES, RICHARD DELLAPENNA, LUETHEL NESBIT Also present were Mayor Michael Cherepko, City Administrator Tom Maglicco, City Solicitor J. Jason Elash and members of the Administration. APPROVAL OF MINUTES: MOTION: Mr. Barry moved, seconded by Mr. Soles, “to approve the Minutes of the Regular Meeting of October 4, 2017.” RC-2 YEAS: BREWSTER-FILOTEI, WALKER-MONTGOMERY, BROWN, BARRY, SOLES, DELLAPENNA, NESBIT (7) NAYS: NONE (0) COMMUNICATIONS: Received both the Police and Fire Department Reports for the month of October 2017. MAYOR’S REPORT: Mayor Cherepko said thank you Mr. President. I am going to be very brief tonight. I talked a little bit during the Work Session. Next month’s meeting my [1] Mayor’s Report will be a little lengthy. We will be presenting the Budget to you and I will be reading the Budget Message into the Minutes. Which, in essence, I will get the opportunity kind of, that Budget Message we try to turn into kind of a state of the City type message so I’ll save it for next month’s meeting I guess as far as that goes. I do want to make sure I do remind the people, a couple of you mentioned it already today, the Veteran’s Day ceremony is 11:00 a.m. here on November 11, 2017; noon down the Boys & Girls Club; as we have a ceremony will be there, and I think they are doing something down at the Christy Park one at noon as well, so we will work that out. The Christmas Parade is Saturday the 18th. The Parade officially starts at 11:00 a.m. Our committee is working very hard on that as they always do. I never miss an opportunity to really just say thank you. The amount of volunteers we have in our City for so many different events is unbelievable and a lot of work, a lot of effort goes forth in making this Parade a success. I commend Jennifer from my office for kind of facilitating everything throughout that process as well. The last thing that I have is Thursday, November 16th, they don’t have a Church right now, they are operating out of the bottom of the Masonic Building, 524 Walnut, and they call them I guess the Youth Department Church, in partnership with our office will be honoring our local Police Department for their hard work and dedication serving our community. There is going to be a Police Appreciation Dinner from 4-7 p.m. so I think you should try to make it over. I thought it was a great, very appreciative that they are going to go out of their way, Pastor Tamia Mitchell and her husband, they are actually looking, they are in the process of trying to secure a Church in our community as well. It’s really a dinner to honor all of the first responders you know not just the Police. I think they are calling it Police Appreciation Dinner because they realize the scrutiny and the microscope that our law enforcement is under in this day and age and she was very excited with the opportunity to really just honor them and to show their appreciation for our Police Department. So, once again, that’s Thursday, November 16th, from 4-7 p.m. President Dellapenna asked do you need to RSVP to that Mayor? Mayor Cherepko said I do not believe so, no, no need to RSVP, 524 Walnut Street. [2] That concludes my Report. I told you I’d be brief there Mr. President. Oh, the other thing is, there is, I’m sorry, one more, I’m not going to go on I promise you. Coats for Kids, this Friday, November 3rd, headed up by the Fire Department and the Chief has a couple thousand coats or something I hear, huh. The entire Twin Rivers Elementary School will be given coats and we commend the Chief and the Fire Department on that and all parties involved for that matter but that’s this Friday, November 3rd. That conclude my Report. President Dellapenna said thank you Mayor. CITIZENS IN THE AUDIENCE: President Dellapenna called for Citizens in the Audience but there were none signed up to speak. NEW BUSINESS: President Dellapenna asked Secretary James for New Business. RESOLUTION NO. 2017-052 – BILL #116 – A RESOLUTION OF THE CITY OF MCKEESPORT, ALLEGHENY COUNTY, PENNSYLVANIA, ADOPTING THE NATIONAL INCIDENT MANAGEMENT SYSTEM IN RELATION TO EMERGENCY MANAGEMENT SERVICES. MOTION: Mrs. Walker-Montgomery moved, seconded by Mrs. Brewster-Filotei Soles “to approve Bill #116.” President Dellapenna asked for discussion and Mayor Cherepko said as we said this was just them asking us to update our, the last time was what 2005, pretty much just the standards? Solicitor Elash said yes, 2005, the National Incident Management System as to how our Emergency Management Plan has been set up and how we make reports. RC-3 YEAS: BREWSTER-FILOTEI, WALKER-MONTGOMERY, BROWN, BARRY, SOLES, DELLAPENNA, NESBIT (7) NAYS: NONE (0) [3] ORDINANCE NO. 17-017 – BILL #117– AN ORDINANCE OF THE CITY OF MCKEESPORT, ALLEGHENY COUNTY, PENNSYLVANIA, AUTHORIZING THE PROPER CITY OFFICIALS TO EXECUTE THE ATTACHED ASSET PURCHASE AGREEMENT SECOND AMENDMENT RELATING TO THE TERMS OF THE ASSET PURCHASE AGREEMENT COVERING THE SALE OF SUBSTANTIALLY ALL OF THE SEWER SYSTEM ASSETS FO THE MUNICIPAL AUTHORITY OF THE CITY OF MCKEESPORT. MOTION: Mr. Soles moved, seconded by Mr. Brown “to approve Bill #117.” President Dellapenna asked for discussion and Mayor Cherepko said this is one of the last things we will do here as a Council in regard to the sale of the Authority. As I said earlier not to repeat everything again, but we are at the final stages now. The PUC approved us officially on a 4-0 vote last week. One gentlemen on the PUC who is pretty much known not to vote in favor of these actually went on record and commended all parties involved for a job well done of negotiating a deal that was fair to everyone and that includes the consumers and the rate- payers. So, we are excited. Closing tentatively will be before the end of this year. That is our goal. Obviously, when the money comes in we need to invest that money and stretch it out as far as we can to buy us time. Obviously, this is something we needed to do to stay out of Act 47 and at the same time we will be coming to this Council next month with a Budget. I think it is only appropriate to use a small portion of that to do some major capital improvements to this City, some demos and some paving next year but we’ll talk about that next month. President Dellapenna said thank you Mayor. RC-4 YEAS: BREWSTER-FILOTEI, WALKER-MONTGOMERY, BROWN, BARRY, SOLES, DELLAPENNA, NESBIT (7) NAYS: NONE (0) ORDINANCE NO. 17-018 – BILL #118– AN ORDINANCE OF THE CITY OF MCKEESPORT, ALLEGHENY COUNTY, PENNSYLVANIA, AUTHORIZING THE PROPER CITY OFFICIALS TO EXECUTE ANY DOCUMENTS NECESSARY TO TRANSFER THE PROPERTY LOCATED AT 408 AND 410 9TH STREET TO THE REDEVELOPMENT AUTHORITY OF THE CITY OF MCKEESPORT. [4] MOTION: Mrs. Nesbit moved, seconded by Mrs. Brewster-Filotei “to approve Bill #118.” President Dellapenna asked for any discussion and Mayor Cherepko said this is the old YWCA Building that we bought for a while ago for the price of $1.00 from the Center for Victims. We are now transferring it over to the Redevelopment Authority who pretty much handles our, the vast majority of all of our real estate. That’s a building that is going to deal with Penn State Greater Allegheny, helping out with a Job Readiness Program, Training, GED’s, pretty much anything we need, including and up to maybe a business needs special training in order to go higher for a dozen employees or what not. Whatever it is, they are going to be playing their role in there. The clinic will still be operating there on Thursdays and we will have a couple other tenants there. Pure Penn is in there right now as well. They are on the main floor and we have two other little ones coming in to make sure that there is no additional cost to the City as far as operating. We will have enough revenue coming in to where it will be cost-neutral and more importantly we will have a building that’s in good shape and it will be a building that will become an asset to our community and to future developments. President Dellapenna said thank you Mayor. RC-5 YEAS: BREWSTER-FILOTEI, WALKER-MONTGOMERY, BROWN, BARRY, SOLES, DELLAPENNA, NESBIT (7) NAYS: NONE (0) At this time President Dellapenna said I need a Motion to Amend the Agenda to add Bills #119 through #121. MOTION: Mr. Barry moved, seconded by Mrs. Brewster-Filotei, “to Amend the Agenda to Add Bills #119 through #121.” RC-6 YEAS: BREWSTER-FILOTEI, WALKER-MONTGOMERY, BROWN, BARRY, SOLES, DELLAPENNA, NESBIT (7) NAYS: NONE (0) [5] RESOLUTION NO. 2017-053 – BILL #119– A RESOLUTION OF THE CITY OF MCKEESPORT, ALLEGHENY COUNTY, PENNSYLVANIA, ADOPTING AND SUBMITTING TO THE DEPARTMENT OF ENVIRONMENTAL PROTECTION FOR ITS APPROVAL AS A REVISION TO THE OFFICIAL SEWAGE FACILITIES PLAN. MOTION: Mr. Soles moved, seconded by Mr. Barry “to approve Bill #119.” President Dellapenna asked for discussion and Mayor Cherepko said this just helps Pure Penn continue their progress with their facility down on the RIDC site. RC-7 YEAS: BREWSTER-FILOTEI, WALKER-MONTGOMERY, BROWN, BARRY, SOLES, DELLAPENNA, NESBIT (7) NAYS: NONE (0) ORDINANCE NO. 2017-019 – BILL #120– AN ORDINANCE OF THE CITY OF MCKEESPORT, ALLEGHENY COUNTY, PENNSYLVANIA, DESIGNATING THE CITY FINANCE DIRECTOR AS THE CHIEF ADMINISTRATIVE OFFICER OF ALL PENSION PLANS ADMINISTERED BY THE CITY OF MCKEESPORT. MOTION: Mr. Barry moved, seconded by Mr. Brown “to approve Bill #120.” President Dellapenna asked for questions or discussion and Mayor Cherepko said with the change in the Pension Law the Auditor sent out a letter requesting us to designate someone and we felt it was appropriate to have Tasha Phelps, being that she’s our City Finance Director. President Dellapenna said thank you Mayor. RC-8 YEAS: BREWSTER-FILOTEI, WALKER-MONTGOMERY, BROWN, BARRY, SOLES, DELLAPENNA, NESBIT (7) NAYS: NONE (0) RESOLUTION NO. 2017-054 – BILL #121– A RESOLUTION OF THE CITY COUNCIL OF THE CITY OF MCKEESPORT, COUNTY OF ALLEGHENY AND COMMONWEALTH OF PENNSYLVANIA, ACCEPTING A CERTIFICATE OF DISSOLUTION OF THE MUNICIPAL AUTHORITY OF THE CITY OF MCKEESPORT; AUTHORIZING THE CITY OF MCKEESPORT TO UNDERTAKE THE DISSOLUTION OF THE MUNICIPAL AUTHORITY OF THE CITY OF MCKEESPORT; AUTHORIZING THE FILING OF THE NECESSARY DISSOLUTION DOCUMENTATION WITH THE SECRETARY OF THE [6] COMMONWEALTH OF PENNSYLVANIA AND THE DEPARTMENT OF REAL ESTATE OF ALLEGHENY COUNTY; AUTHORIZING CITY OFFICERS TO UNDERTAKE ALL STEPS NECESSARY TO PUT THE FOREGOING RESOLUTION INTO EFFECT; REPEALING ALL INCONSISTENT RESOLUTIONS OR ORDINANCES AND SETTING FORTH AN EFFECTIVE DATE. MOTION: Mr. Barry moved, seconded by Mrs. Brewster-Filotei “to approve Bill #121.” President Dellapenna asked for questions or discussion and Mayor Cherepko said as it reads I think it is pretty clear. This doesn’t mean that it will be dissolved tomorrow. It just means you are authorizing us to take the steps necessary throughout this process. Ultimately, as you are all aware, when the Authority is sold to American Water legally in order to get the money over into the City’s hands we obviously need to dissolve the Authority. So, it won’t be dissolved immediately. You are just giving us the steps. President Dellapenna asked and that will happen at the Closing? Mayor Cherepko said yes, we will dissolve the Authority and the Authority themselves will also act when the time comes. It may be Closing, honestly, we may operate, they may find it let’s let them operate for a month or something through transition, whatever it may be. We just want to be prepared being that it is targeted to close November 30th, we want to be prepared at this meeting to have the authority, if they so choose that’s the best route to go. President Dellapenna said thank you Mayor. RC-9 YEAS: BREWSTER-FILOTEI, WALKER-MONTGOMERY, BROWN, BARRY, SOLES, DELLAPENNA, NESBIT (7) NAYS: NONE (0) [7] ADJOURNMENT: President of Council Dellapenna said thank you for attending tonight’s meeting and that concludes the Council meeting. Have a good night! The meeting then adjourned at 7:15 p.m. Respectfully submitted, Annette James City Clerk and Clerk of Council APPROVED: Richard Dellapenna President of Council das [8]