City Council

CITY OF MCKEESPORT REGULAR MEETING WEDNESDAY 7:00 P.M. FEBRUARY 7, 2018 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. Prayer was led by Fr. Steve from Corpus Christi Parish. The following Members of Council were present: RC-1 PRESENT: LUETHEL NESBIT, RICHARD DELLAPENNA, TIMOTHY BROWN, JAMIE BREWSTER-FILOTEI, JIM BARRY, BRIAN EVANS, KEITH SOLES ABSENT: NONE APPROVAL OF MINUTES: MOTION: Mrs. Nesbit moved, seconded by Mr. Soles, “to approve the Minutes of the Regular Meeting of January 7, 2018.” RC-2 YEAS: NESBIT, DELLAPENNA, BROWN, BREWSTER-FILOTEI, BARRY, EVANS, SOLES (7) NAYS: NONE (0) COMMUNICATIONS: Received both the Police and Fire Department Reports for the month of January 2018. MAYOR’S REPORT: Mayor Cherepko said thank you Mr. President. Just a few things. First and foremost, I think as you’ve seen today, with the weather, Mother Nature has not been very nice to us this year. One thing I could assure you to this Council, to the residents, I know you were getting complaints, you guys usually pass them over to us, I really think that sometimes people have some unrealistic expectations. For whatever reason they think that they need to come out and their road be wet and when you live in Southwestern Pennsylvania that is not the case. Not to compare [1] us to other municipalities but I mean there are other municipalities that will give you, if you are on a secondary road, they’ll say we’ll get to your road within 48 hours, 72 hours, some of them. That’s not even the case with us. We pretty much hit just about every road within the first time we are out. Now, when you have a snow that continues to come all day and all night, and we are focusing on the main roads, then yes there is not as much attention to secondary. But we deal with them, we deal with the complaints when they come in, and we are out there hitting the roads. I think what people need to keep in mind is when the weather is bad, the goal has always been for us to focus on the hills. Some people live on a flat road and they come out and their road is not wet and what they don’t realize is yea we may have done one pass by and treated the road but if there is no traffic on the road and it’s really cold the material, the product doesn’t work. But the point is you are on a flat. You’ll see we focus on the hills and getting people off the hills and getting them onto the main roads and then try to make those as clean as possible. What I can assure you without any uncertainty whatsoever, as much as we are over our budget already, we are about 4,500 tons of salt used. Last year we probably went through 1,500, 2,000 ton. We are up double that already and you still have a month of winter left. We are out there. We are treating the roads. We are not cutting corners, just so you are aware, as Council and the residents. I mean literally I have given full authorization that our police are out there 24/7 and when they see the roads starting to get slippery they call 9-1-1 and they call Steve and Steve doesn’t even bother calling me because I’ve given him the authorization to get the men out. So, we are not taking shortcuts, we are not trying to conserve, we’ve spent a boat load of money. We typically budget for the whole season on a normal season and I realize last year was a little bit below, but we usually go through about 3,000 ton on an average winter and we are already at 4,400 and like I said last year was below average we were at 2,000. But our men are out there, sometimes they are out there 16 hours going straight. We end up sending them home and call them back out 2-3 hours later. So, make no question, without any uncertainty whatsoever, you need to be assured that we are not holding back on that. We will continue to treat the roads the best that we can. Like I said, I ask the public to be patient. Please understand that you live in Southwestern Pennsylvania and you are not going to walk out of your house and have your roads wet. That’s just not realistic. I drove around much of the day today and roads that were treated [2] were still snow covered or ice covered. When you get onto the main roads some believe that’s because we treated it more often. There could be a little truth to that because maybe we hit it more than once, twice, whatever, but the truth be told it’s that you have so much traffic on the main roads and it lets the product work better. But, just so you know we are on top of that and Steve you are doing a great job with your men and just keep doing what you are doing. As far as Lent goes, there is a Lenten Calendar here for McKeesport Ministerial for services every Wednesday they are having one starting on February 21st at Auberle and then it moves through the different churches. The 28th Bethlehem Baptist, 7th McKeesport Presbyterian, March 14th the Rainbow Temple, March 21st St. Stephen’s, so we do have this calendar here for you as well. Take the opportunity too, I think does it start next week, Lent, right, the 14th, starting on the 14th, Ash Wednesday, every Friday we do have local Fish Fries at our Churches. To the best of my knowledge we still have St. Sova, and we still have Corpus Christi every Friday and St. Stephen’s last year did Good Friday only and Jason just mentioned to me that’s the same. So, if you get a chance stop at our Fish Fries. I will double-check with Bethlehem Baptist, I don’t believe they did one last year either. I think that was their first year they didn’t but as of now those are the ones we are aware of. We’ll get those on our Web Site as well, on our Facebook Page, whatever, because we need to promote our Churches. It’s a chance to go and enjoy a good lunch and help them fundraise much needed money so they can continue their operations. A lot going on. Not to bore you through all the details. But when you talk about a big year in 2018 I talked about it during the Budget Message, I talked about it in January a little bit. We just condemned, had a Hearing today, had a Condemnation Hearing of 87 houses that were condemned. We are going to do another Hearing probably in about 4 months from now and do at least another 60 or 70, possibly 80 or 90. We are continuing to do demolition in-house as well as these are going on. As we said in the message, our goal is to do 200 homes this year and depending on the pricing, because you know we do have to be careful, we need to watch that and see where it goes, but you know pricing has changed a little bit because of some of the regulations that have been put on us through the County and what not. Things have changed a little bit. Where we were exempt from certain things we are no longer exempt, so that’s driving up the cost [3] unfortunately but that’s something I am working with to get other community leaders throughout the Mon Valley. In my opinion we have to work on something because it is very damaging to struggling communities in the Mon Valley that are depending, are dealing with so much blight. But in addition to those projects, paving projects we are going to be doing, the Dog Park will continue, and we are hoping to complete that this year. That’s the addition with an additional one mile of walking trail. Out there where what we call our new ball fields. They are just our newer ball fields, behind Lake Emily. We are working on that. The Daily News Building, we are in there now and getting that cleaned up. We have Point Park as we talked about before is going to be a tenant for the multi-media center. Jason Togyer and Tube City are looking to take space as well. We have a couple other entities interested. We are working with the District Attorney’s Office to have a presence in here as well and some others. So, we are very excited about what that brings to the City and what can come from that economically and Economic Development wise and also from a safety wise in our City. Steve Zappala has always been a great friend to the City of McKeesport and we continue that relationship. We are working with his office to help curb this addiction to crime and violence. There are cameras, I don’t want to put too much out there, but the technology with some of these new cameras is unbelievable and we are going to have several in our City. There are already a few up now. These are cameras that read license plates, take snapshots of your car going through, the technology allows you to literally if someone has a description of a car leaving a scene, crime scene, it could just be a black car and it will pull up every black car that’s gone through those cameras. It could be a car with a Steelers bumper sticker on it and it will pull up every car that had a Steelers bumper sticker on the back end of it. Literally, a partial license plate. Not only will we be able to see where they go in McKeesport, but you will be able to track these all through Allegheny County, through all the other camera systems they have throughout the County, from North Versailles, up to the Monroeville sector, all the way up to Route 51 down to Brownsville Road and beyond so we are very excited about that. There will be more to come with that. I can’t help but put a little bit out because once we have this up and running I could assure you we are going to spread the word and these individuals that are making poor choices in life right now, if they see the technology that’s being utilized and see just how it’s being utilized, there is no question in my mind they are going to think twice before they come into [4] McKeesport. We are taking money out of our fund that this Council budgeted to do several extra cameras as well, so we are pretty much going to have, well we almost have now, just about every entrance into the City covered. Everyway you can come in and we are going to hit all the other main arteries throughout town. I will share with Council more detail where they are at. I am not ever going to publicly say where they are all at because we want to keep those that are making the wrong choices, keep them guessing, but I will tell you we will have this City of McKeesport covered. I’m excited about it. I am extremely, very, very excited about it. So not only will he have a presence here, the DA’s office here at the Daily News Building but there’s going to be a lot more. That’s all if that goes well, the presence there, that’s not in stone now. I don’t want anyone to mis-quote me, I guess I, not mis-quote me, I guess I shouldn’t have said that, but the goal is to possibly get him his office in here as a tenant. We have upgrades to all the pavilions in Renzie Park this year. We are going to go with metal roofs. We are going to be putting bids out to get nice bright metal red, probably red, probably blue. The Lions’ ones were purple. There’s going to be another Lions’ one getting done. That’s going to be Pavilion #4 which sits over behind the Spray Park. That’s going to be, I don’t think we are ready, it’s going to be a Lion’s one and I don’t want to get into the individuals that are helping raise the money in remembrance of someone, but we’ll release that at a later date. So, we are looking to rehab all the pavilions. They need it without question but you know the one thing you look at Renzie Park if you look at the amount of things that has taken place in the last 6 years, I’m just speaking on the 6 years I was there and I know the Senator did extremely well before me as well, but all the new things over there, from the Deck Hockey to we totally renovated the Blue Top Pavilion, to the Spray Park to total renovations of the tennis courts, to all the new basketball courts as well, to the upgrades at Jimmy Long Field, you know the list goes on and on and we are continuing to do things over there. We are looking to bring a fitness, I’ll wait to release that too, area as well, it’s a whole program where it’s a matching Grant that we are looking to receive and put that in the Park as well. We are looking to build a new parking lot over there that can not only help because we are having, I mean parking is going to be short this summer because I don’t believe we will get the lot done in time, but I think it’s a good problem to have. When you go to Renzie Park with the addition of the Deck [5] Hockey, keep in mind that wasn’t up and running really for leagues and things last summer. Between that and the Spray Park in full use again and the tennis courts and the ball games and everything else, you are going to see a need for additional parking and that’s a good problem to have. You did see on your Agenda tonight increasing the main pavilion, the Jacob Woll Social Hall, this is nice, I’m not used to this. Speaking of that we did get a new sound system. So, I am sure many of you can hear us much more clearly. I don’t know if that’s good or bad sometimes, but we are raising, asking Council to raise the rates to $450 instead of $400 and the reason is to help off-set the cost for those that may have forgotten or did not know, we now have air conditioning in the main pavilion and that cost, it’s a pretty big cost during those summer months. So, we thought about just raising it in the summer months but then we would have probably raised it more than the $50 so we figured just up it $50. That’s our recommendation to Council, just do $50 across the board 12 months a year and then no one’s paying extra in the summer because that is continues to be something that is utilized quite often. We will, we are working on a Grant to do another traffic signal on Walnut Street and that will pretty much cover everything at that point. We will have the money now, you will have all new signals. Remember, we have everything on Lysle Boulevard, we upgraded some of the ones on Walnut and we will have all new signals at that point as well. So, we are excited, I mean, there’s a lot of things going on. We have the amphitheater, we have the pier that’s done down at Gergely Park as well. Thanks to Mr. Tedesco and his work through CD. We are going to look to do some things down there as well, some events possibly down there. You have a lot going on in your City in addition to the businesses. I will tell you we sold that parcel, I probably said it prior, yea I did because I remember talking and thanking Mr. Dellapenna. Adjacent across the street from Tube City for a new business. He’s going to put a new building up, another new business in town. Down the street you see Vegely and what he is doing and moving his entire operations. We have someone right now extremely interested and unfortunately our garden may go away because we have that beautiful garden on Walnut Street there, but we have a possibility of someone buying that entire block to open up another big business [6] and it looks like that’s going to happen as well. We met with RIDC and there are some things in the works down there as well that we are continuing to work on and when we can share that we most certainly will give you more information but there’s a lot of good things going on, so you need to be aware of that. Council, thank you for doing everything you do. All too often people don’t see what goes on in between Council meetings and a lot of people they don’t realize the amount of conversations that take place, the issues that come up and we have a very hard-working City Council and the bottom line is by the time we come to the meeting often times they don’t have too much to say and the reason why is because we have talked about everything in between meetings. That’s good too because there’s many times where maybe we don’t always agree, maybe a Council person might not agree with what we are trying to do and what not, but I think what we’ve done is they continue to operate with respect and dignity and we are like a family here. We don’t need to air our laundry, we deal with things behind closed doors. For our media here, that doesn’t mean the entire Council, those are one-on-one meetings. We are not violating Sunshine or anything but when a Council person has an issue we sit down and talk and most often they can see where we are coming from, might not be something they are thinking of and that’s why you see a yes vote. Every now and then you will see someone with a no vote and once again they don’t cause a big stir, they don’t grandstand, there’s no dog and pony shows, and they cast their no vote and typically I know why because we have had good conversations Let me tell you something, you reporters, some of you reporters here, I see Jeff here, would agree. You look around the municipalities around us and what you see here in McKeesport you see a lot of harmony and when I say that, don’t think for a second because I just met with another gentleman and I said this before but within the last 2 weeks. Literally, when he sees these other communities, the in-fighting, the political stuff and the stuff that goes on, that makes investors hesitant to come to your community, but on the other hand when we see Council and the Mayor working together and they see things like that, I can tell you right now, we have someone that bought a building in another community and it’s so bad that they literally are talking about selling the building and coming here. Just because of that type of stuff so it’s important we stay on the same page and we work for the best interest of the City. There’s no question we are dealing with 7 Council people that have the best interests of the City at heart and we have the same goals and I always say [7] I will work with anyone that has the same goals. It doesn’t mean that we may not have different paths to get there and different ideas to get there but as long as we have the same goals we are going to be successful. So, I appreciate your efforts in operating in the manner that we do, but it’s an exciting year, you are going to be, we are all going to be part of something special this year. I really believe that. Mr. President, I believe that concludes my report. President Dellapenna said thank you Mayor. CITIZENS IN THE AUDIENCE: President Dellapenna stated that nobody had signed up to speak. NEW BUSINESS: President Dellapenna asked Secretary James for New Business. ORDINANCE NO. 18-001 – BILL #8 – AN ORDINANCE OF THE CITY OF MCKEESPORT, ALLEGHENY COUNTY, PENNSYLVANIA, RE-ESTABLISHING THE RENTAL RATES FOR THE JACOB WOLL MAIN PAVILION IN RENZIEHAUSEN PARK. MOTION: Mr. Barry moved, seconded by Mr. Evans, “to approve Bill #8.” President Dellapenna asked for discussion and Mayor Cherepko said to be honest with you we will have to see after the first year, I mean we are not going to go any further but just so everyone understands, this is just to help cover the additional cost because I don’t even think if you figured out the $50 with the amount of rentals, I mean your electric went from down here in that building to where they do those little bar graphs, I mean it’s off the charts, they like had to add, I mean it’s a big difference. So, it’s a minimal increase but it will definitely help. RC-3 YEAS: NESBIT, DELLAPENNA, BROWN, BREWSTER-FILOTEI, BARRY, EVANS, SOLES (7) NAYS: NONE (0) [8] ORDINANCE NO. 18-002 – BILL #9 – AN ORDINANCE OF THE CITY OF MCKEESPORT, ALLEGHENY COUNTY, PENNSYLVANIA, AUTHORIZING THE PROPER CITY OFFICERS TO EXECUTE THE ATTACHED MEMORANDUM OF UNDERSTANDING WITH THE ALLEGHENY TRAIL ALLIANCE FOR THE OPERATIONS AND MANAGEMENT OF SAID TRAIL. MOTION: Mrs. Nesbit moved, seconded by Mr. Soles, “to approve Bill #9.” RC-4 YEAS: NESBIT, DELLAPENNA, BROWN, BREWSTER-FILOTEI, BARRY, EVANS, SOLES (7) NAYS: NONE (0) ORDINANCE NO. 18-003 – BILL #10 – AN ORDINANCE OF THE CITY OF MCKEESPORT, ALLEGHENY COUNTY, PENNSYLVANIA, AUTHORIZING THE PROPER CITY OFFICERS TO ENTER INTO A CONTRACT WITH THE SERVICE PERSONNEL AND EMPLOYEES OF THE DAIRY INDUSTRY, TEAMSTERS LOCAL UNION NO. 205 OF PITTSBURGH, PENNSYLANIA, AFFILIATED WITH THE INTERNATIONAL BROTHERHOOD OF TEAMSTERS, CHAUFFERS, WAREHOUSEMEN AND HELPERS OF AMERICA, REPRESENTING THE PUBLIC WORKS DEPARTMENTOF THE CITY OF MCKEESPORT, SETTING FORTH THE TERMS AND CONDITIONS OF EMPLOYMENT, INCLUDING COMPENSATION, HOURS, WORKING CONDITIONS, AND OTHER BENEFITS FOR A PERIOD OF THREE (3) YEARS COMMENCING JANUARY 1, 2018, AND ENDING DECEMBER 31, 2020. MOTION: Mr. Evans moved, seconded by Mrs. Brewster-Filotei, “to approve Bill #10.” President Dellapenna asked for any questions or discussion and Mayor Cherepko said I am not going to go through everything but I do want to commend the Bargaining Unit for agreeing to a wage freeze in the third year of the Contract. They are also the ones that as I said earlier did the big concession last time with the deductibles on their health care and they are doing a lot more with a lot less personnel and we will continue to try to save through attrition. So, I do appreciate their cooperation on all that. RC-5 YEAS: NESBIT, DELLAPENNA, BROWN, BREWSTER-FILOTEI, BARRY, EVANS, SOLES (7) [9]  NAYS: NONE (0) ORDINANCE NO. 18-004 – BILL #11 – AN ORDINANCE OF THE CITY OF MCKEESPORT, ALLEGHENY COUNTY, PENNSYLVANIA, AMENDING ORDINANCE #13-13, AS AMENDED, TO AMEND THE MUNICIPAL FIREFIGHTERS PENSION PLAN OF THE CITY OF MCKEESPORT TO REFLECT CHANGES RESULTING FROM COLLECTIVE BARGAINING. MOTION: Mr. Brown moved, seconded by Mrs. Brewster-Filotei, “to approve Bill #11.” RC-6 YEAS: NESBIT, DELLAPENNA, BROWN, BREWSTER-FILOTEI, BARRY, EVANS, SOLES (7) NAYS: NONE (0) ORDINANCE NO. 18-005 – BILL #12 – AN ORDINANCE OF THE CITY OF MCKEESPORT, ALLEGHENY COUNTY, PENNSYLVANIA, AMENDING ORDINANCE #13-15, AS AMENDED, TO AMEND THE MUNICIPAL POLICE PENSION PLAN OF THE CITY OF MCKEESPORT TO REFLECT CHANGES RESULTING FROM COLLECTIVE BARGAINING. MOTION: Mr. Soles moved, seconded by Mr. Evans, “to approve Bill #12.” Solicitor Elash said again, this is the same, both of these are the same to correct some conflicting language regarding the draw. RC-7 YEAS: NESBIT, DELLAPENNA, BROWN, BREWSTER-FILOTEI, BARRY, EVANS, SOLES (7) NAYS: NONE (0) RESOLUTION NO. 2018-008 – BILL #13 – A RESOLUTION OF THE CITY OF MCKEESPORT, ALLEGHENY COUNTY, PENNSYLVANIA, AUTHORIZING THE PROPER CITY OFFICERS TO EXECUTE ALL DOCUMENTS NECESSARY TO TRANSFER THE ADMINISTRATION OF THE ENTERPRISE ZONE IN MCKEESPORT TO THE DUQUESNE BUSINESS ADVISORY BOARD. MOTION: Mrs. Brewster-Filotei moved, seconded by Mrs. Nesbit, “to approve Bill #13.” [10] President Dellapenna asked for any questions or discussion and Solicitor Elash said again this is to keep ours with Clairton and Duquesne. RC-8 YEAS: NESBIT, DELLAPENNA, BROWN, BREWSTER-FILOTEI, BARRY, EVANS, SOLES (7) NAYS: NONE (0) President Dellapenna said at this time I need a Motion to Amend the Agenda to add Bill #14. MOTION: Mrs. Nesbit moved, seconded by Mr. Soles, “to amend the Agenda to Add Bill #14.” RC-9 YEAS: NESBIT, DELLAPENNA, BROWN, BREWSTER-FILOTEI, BARRY, EVANS, SOLES (7) ORDINANCE NO. 18-006 – BILL #14 – AN ORDINANCE OF THE CITY OF MCKEESPORT, ALLEGHENY COUNTY, PENNSYLVANIA, AUTHORIZING THE PROPER CITY OFFICERS TO ENTER INTO A CONTRACT WITH THE SERVICE PERSONNEL AND EMPLOYEES OF THE DAIRY INDUSTRY, TEAMSTERS LOCAL UNION NO. 205 OF PITTSBURGH, PENNSYLANIA, AFFILIATED WITH THE INTERNATIONAL BROTHERHOOD OF TEAMSTERS, CHAUFFERS, WAREHOUSEMEN AND HELPERS OF AMERICA, REPRESENTING THE POLICE DEPARTMENTOF THE CITY OF MCKEESPORT, SETTING FORTH THE TERMS AND CONDITIONS OF EMPLOYMENT, INCLUDING COMPENSATION, HOURS, WORKING CONDITIONS, AND OTHER BENEFITS FOR A PERIOD OF THREE (3) YEARS COMMENCING JANUARY 1, 2018, AND ENDING DECEMBER 31, 2020. NAYS: NONE (0) MOTION: Mr. Brown moved, seconded by Mr. Evans, “to approve Bill #14.” President Dellapenna asked for any questions or discussion and Mayor Cherepko said I went into it all earlier so I am not going to go into everything again, I don’t think anyone else walked in, but on the record I just want to thank the Police for willing for the first time to take a deductible and they now will have a $1,500 for an individual and a $3,000 deductible on their health care. That’ definitely a [11] major concession and I do appreciate that. Obviously, the big goal is to curb the utilization as we said earlier which ultimately should keep our premium down and that’s what we are hoping out of this. President Dellapenna said thank you Mayor. RC-10 YEAS: NESBIT, DELLAPENNA, BROWN, BREWSTER-FILOTEI, BARRY, EVANS, SOLES (7) NAYS: NONE (0) Solicitor Elash said, as I explained in the Work Session we had an issue with one of our parcels that went through the Vacant Property Review Program and there were some issues with the recording of the Deed and the gentleman that purchased the property, the tax years 2011 and 2012 are now delinquent and we wanted to, I need a Motion for the proper City officials to take all actions necessary to exonerate all City tax liens for 2011 and 2012 for Lot and Block 461- E-175. Mayor Cherepko said what this was I’m sorry I didn’t hear the beginning of what he said but there was a gentleman that purchased property through VPRC in 2010 and the Deed didn’t get filed, it was back when Callen was our Redevelopment Authority Director, prior to me, bottom line is something got dropped and he ended up then resigning everything and getting the Deed in 2013 so there’s just a bunch of confusion so from that point on is when he was paying taxing so we are just looking to exonerate them and he did take a vacant piece of property and put it back on the tax rolls. Basically, where it’s at it probably never would have been put back on the tax rolls so it is a good thing. MOTION: Mr. Nesbit moved, seconded by Mrs. Brewster-Filotei, “to approve the property City officials to exonerate taxes for 918 Camp Street, Block/Lot 461-E-175 for Tax Years 2011 and 2012.” RC-11 YEAS: NESBIT, DELLAPENNA, BROWN, BREWSTER-FILOTEI, BARRY, EVANS, SOLES (7) NAYS: NONE (0) [12] Mayor Cherepko said if I may, I just wanted to comment, the one Bill that we did dealt with the Enterprise Zone money. For those that don’t know that’s the loans that we have for our businesses. Whether it’s an existing business that wants to add on, to renovate their existing facilities, or whether it’s a new business, but they are low interest loans that a business owner is able to get. It’s after they secure the land but it’s become, I mean a lot used it over the years, Christy Park Cones and Lampert’s Market and, there’s Keystone Basement Solutions and right now there’s about 3 or 4 out. Right now, there are 3 or 4 just from McKeesport and so it’s another thing that we use when we try to attract new businesses into town, so it’s been a great tool to use. ADJOURNMENT: President of Council Dellapenna said thank you Mayor and with that being said that concludes the Council meeting Wednesday, February 7th. Thank you all for attending and good night. The meeting then adjourned at 7:30 p.m. Respectfully submitted, Annette James City Clerk and Clerk of Council APPROVED: Richard Dellapenna President of Council das [13]