City Council

Thursday, October 21, 2021 7:00 PM Williamsport, PA Council President Randy Allison brought the meeting of the Williamsport City Council meeting to order on Thursday, October 21, 2021 at 7:00 PM per remote. Williamsport. The meeting was livestreamed.. Council members present: Randy Allison, President Also, Present: , President Elizabeth Miele, Vice President absent Bill Hall,Derek Slaughter, Mayor, Councilman Mr. Willia Bonnie Katz, Councilwoman Mr. Joe Gerardi Mr. Jose Adam Yoder, Councilman, Mr. Joe Pawlak Vince Pulizzi, Councilman, August Memmi Jon Mackey, Councilman, Mark Killian, Fire Chief, Adam W David Banks, Councilman Justin Snyder, Police Chief Chief He Absent: Solictor Norman Lubin Elizabeth Miele Janice Frank, City Clerk Adam Winder, RVT Kris Black, ITT Members from RKL, audit Approval of the Williamsport City Council minutes for 10/07/21 were approved upon a motion Mrs. Katz and a second from Mr. Banks. All were in favor. The vote was 6 to 0. Ms. Miele was absent. Mr. Allison made an announcement that there was an executive session on Monday, October 18, 2021 in the matter of lease agreement and contracts. Mr. Joseph Pawlak Limited Courtesy of the Floor . There were no comments. Mr. Joe Pawlak Mr. Gary Knarr Mr. Tom Cillo C. Dean Mr. Allison changed the order of the agenda. Dave Young, Police Chief Chief He Sol. J. David Smith Janice Frank, City Clerk, absent Resolution #9195 th Todd Heckman, Fire Chief , Resolution of the 30 June 2020 Williamsport Bureau of Transportation Annual Audit The City Clerk read the resolution. News Media Mr. Allison asked for a motion and a second on the resolution. Mr. Yoder made the motion and it was seconded by Mr. Mackey. Mr. Allison welcomed the auditors - RKL. Mr. Winder stated . This is the June 30, 2019 to July -- or July 1, 2019 to June 30, 2020 Audit for River Valley Transit. It was reviewed in finance. We do have Mark Zetemoyer Members of News with RKL Media and Tim Craft Members of the news media tonight. They will be presenting this to council tonight for your approval. It was forwarded with a positive recommendation from the finance committee. So I will turn it over to Mr. Kraft or Mr. Zetemoyer Mark Zettlemoyer. I'll go through the highlights of the financial statement. If members on council have questions please let us know. With me tonight is Tim Kraft, the engagement partner/manager out in the field during the field work. This is for the year ending June 30, 2020. What is up on your screen is the cover page of the financial statement. We will jump right into the -- Mr. Yoder stated he had two quick questions before we dive into this that he didn't think or got thrown off a little off guard on, on Tuesday, to ask. So the resolution has a discrepancy compared to the recommendation in the audit. The resolution says an unqualified report. And this is an adverse opinion. Do we need to fix that? Does anybody know where that came from, Adam Winder? Mr. Winder That was the recommendation of solicitor Nagy to use that terminology. On the resolution itself.. Mr. Yoder Do we know why it's different than what the opinion of the audit was? Mr. Winder stated I would think it was just an error on Jill's, when she communicated it. She was aware of the fact of the opinion that was going to be presented. Mr. Yoder Ok. And I just noticed this one again. So, the audit that we have is in draft format. This one also is in draft format. And the date here conflicts with what we have. Why is this still in draft format? Mr. Zettlemoyer answered In order to issue finals it should be approved by council first. So once council approves the draft, then we will issue the final which is as of today's date, which is the date that council approved it. Mr. Yoder stated Ok. Why is that? That seems a little backwards. Mr. Zettlemoyer answered That's the professional standard. As we go through it, you will see that the financial statements are the responsibility of council and management. So, we are there to assist in the calculation of the draft financial statement. So once you see them, you will approve them, and then once you approve them, we can issue them in final form. If you agree that this is the version of the financial statement. And that's the normal practice. Mr. Allison We had requests for the audit to be released to the press on Tuesday. After the finance meeting. and I advised our city clerk that we couldn't do that until it was voted on. Because it wasn't officially accepted or official document. Mr. Zettlemoyer That's right. It's not an official document until it's accepted and issued in final form. Mr. Yoder Ok. I -- sorry to interrupt you. I appreciate the clarification on that. I thought they were pretty foundational stuff before really diving into this. Thank you so much. Mr. Zettlemoyer stated So we will start with independent auditor's report on Page 1. And some of this we just talked a little bit. Of course the financial statements in the first paragraph indicate it's for the year ending June 30, 2020. And what we just touched on was management's responsibility for the financial statement. So while we assist in drafting the financial statement, the city council and management have the responsibility for the presentation of the financial statements in accordance with generally accepted accounting principles and also for the underlying design and internal controls, the implementation of that internal control structure, and the maintenance of that internal control structure. And, as part of that, drafts are presented to council as part of that process and that control structure and process. Our responsibility as independent auditors is to test the underlying documentation under the financial statements, look at the internal control structure, see if we see any areas within it that are not functioning properly or that we think there's room for improvement of it. We look at supporting documentation and test the transactions that are underlying the numbers in the financial statement. And then we give our opinion, which is on the top of Page 2. And as Adam had mentioned, it is an adverse opinion. Basically what that means is during our testing of the financial statements, and the related transactions, we couldn't get to a position where we felt the financial statements are free from material misstatement. We will go through those examples or some items that relate to that toward the end of this discussion we will look at some findings and reportable conditions that we have at the back of the audit.So in our opinion, because of this significance of those financial statements, we don't believe they fairly present the financial position of the -- June 30, 2020. There is other information in your financial statements that's required to be included in that. One of those is a management's discussion and analysis. Because of the nature of the report, this year, there isn't a managements discussion and analysis. It doesn't impact, really, the opinion at all. It should be in there and it had been in prior years. And going forward, hopefully that will be included. So if we jump down to Page 4, which is a statement of net position, the statement of net position is similar to a balance sheet if you are more familiar from a corporate environment. So at June 30, cash was $2.1 million. Almost $2.2 million. In the bureau. Now of that cash, the bulk of that cash, actually all of that cash is restricted under various grant agreements that the authority or the bureau has. The bureau also had some grant receivables of about $2.7 million. Those relate to transit operating type of grants. There was also some funds that were due from the city related to debt service payments that the authority had advanced. Then the largest item on the balance sheet from an asset standpoint is the capital assets. Those net of depreciation totaled almost $55 million. So, some of these items in here are areas that present a challenge. When we look at the capital assets, the bureau has a lot of assets on the books that are not necessarily transit related. They are projects that were done related to city projects or city-owned projects, investments. And that impacts a lot of different things on the financial statement from grants receivables, unearned revenue, those type of things. And what the presentation of the proper amount of assets is. There's also some things on here called deferred outflows of resources. Where we jump to the next page, you will also see some deferred inflow of resources, too. Those relate to the pension plans or employee benefit plans. There are some challenges related to that because there's not necessarily time studies to allocate labor properly and salary properly along those lines. So there was a crossover in a lot of instances between activities related to the Bureau and activities related to the city. And the Bureau's component of it is funded by primarily through transit grants from PennDOTand also through the FTA. You can't use a PennDOT grant or FTA grant to pay to the city or any other organizations. When we look at the next section of the balance sheet, that's the liability side of it. Current total liabilities on the books were about $6 million 500,000 dollars. You will see a couple items in there due to the City of Williamsport, $1 million. The actual details and the components of that are difficult to come up and determine what those are. There are amounts due to other governments. Unearned Commonwealth of Pennsylvania Act 44 funds. Those are funds that the commonwealth of Pennsylvania provided to the Bureau and give them to them in advance, usually through 11 or 12 monthly payments. And those funds are to be utilized for the provision of public transportation in the area that's covered by River Valley Transit. In looking at the expenses charged against those grants, we did see some expenditures that we were related to other entities. There were some expenses related to the parking authority that were run through the bureau. There were transactions related to some other organizations, as well, that were run through the bureau. So it appears that some of those grant funds that were to be used for public transportation were used for things other than the provision of those public transportation services. When we drop down to the long-term liability section, there's about $12 million of debt that the authority, or the Bureau, has on its books. $10 to $12 million. In looking at debt agreement, a lot of that debt seems to be related to projects that were more in the nature of the city. And one of the things that we did see was that some of the Act 44 funds, the grant funds that PennDOT provides to the Bureau were being utilized to pay the debt service on those long-term obligations. Now under the Act 44 grant agreement, debt service payment is not an eligible expense and if you would use Act 44 money for the acquisition of any capital assets you would have to have preapproval for that transaction before those transactions occurred. If we could jump down to the income statement. You will see the operating revenues and expenses. Your operating revenues were about $1.8 million. Operating expenses were about $14 million. Within that operating expense category, there's about $3.8 million of depreciation that's a noncash expense. So if you subtract that out, your cash-related expenditures were about $10 million. Within -- I'll jump back up to the revenues in a second. But within the expenses, as I mentioned, we did see some expenses that were for entities other than the Bureau and for transactions other than the provision of public transportation services. So that really impacts the amount of unearned revenue that is related to the Act 44 grants and makes it impossible to determine what it is. I believe ultimately, there will have to be some agreement with PennDOT as to what the unearned or deferred portion of the Act 44 funds will be per the agreement. Your passenger fares, I'll jump back up to the top. Passenger fares were about $636,000. Industry wide across the country everybody knows passenger fares were down. The Endless Mountain Transportation service contract, that's shared ride services that you provide for Endless Mountain. As we were testing that particular line item, one of the things we saw was an adjustment into that account where Endless Mountain Transit Authority was requested to write checks on behalf of River Valley out of the Endless Mountain bank account for the purchase of three used vehicles totaling approximately $60,000. So what RBT should have done or the bureau should have done is gone to PennDOT, gotten approval to purchase transportation vehicles, gotten capital grants for that, and gone through that process. What RVT did was have Endless Mountain write those checks for it and they gave Endless Mountain a credit against its transportation bill. So, if Endless Mountain for a particular month owed for example $50,000 for transit fees, they were given a credit against that bill as kind of a reimbursement to fund the acquisition of those shared-ride vehicles. So not going through the appropriate and the grant funded and approved process related to that. If we drop down into your nonoperating revenues and expenses, and your federal government grants, $2,474,000 Commonwealth of Pennsylvania Act 44 fopped, expenses were applied against it worth $4.5 million and local government funds were about $535,000. One of the things that you will see in the findings in the back of the report relates to local funding. Under your Act 44 grant agreements, and I'll use an example of $4 million. PennDOT may say to the Bureau we will give you $4 million to fund your operations for fiscal 2020. But as part of that, we want you to have a local match to our $4 million of $400,000. What we noted during the audit process related to that local match is that the city would write a check or fund the Bureau for that local match component. That $400,000. But then the Bureau would, in turn, indicate that it was going to go out to local municipalities, the boroughs and townships that you serve, and collect funds to assist with that local match and the Bureau would write a check back to the city for that amount. So, if the city wrote an initial check for example for $400,000, the Bureau might indicate they were going to collect $100,000 from neighboring municipalities or service municipalities, write a check back to the city for that $100,000. But then not go out and collect those funds or collect all of those funds from the municipality. So in effect, when PennDOT gave you that grant and said you need to put in $400,000 of local funds, between the transactions where the city wrote the check and the bureau wrote it back to the city, you didn't contribute --the bureau didn't get the contributions for the total local match that they were supposed to.So it understated the local match of collections related to that. Another item that's on here is interest . The other item that's on here is interest expense of $536,000, almost $537,000. That relates to the debt service that we paid, that we talked about a little bit earlier. If we can turn to the statement of cash flows. This is another way of looking at your statement of revenue expenses and changes in that position. Mrs. Katz stated I do have a question. Go back to the match on collections. . Who was responsible to go after the matches? The city? Or RVT at that point? Mr. Zettlemoyer answered It would be -- I would say RVT. Because RVT was indicating that they would collect those funds to match the PennDOT grant. That's my understanding. Mrs. Katz asked so RVT hasn't been collecting the matches for a while then? Mr. Zettlemoyer answered Not the full local matches, correct. Part of it was collected from the city and there was some smaller amounts collected from some municipalities. The other thing that we saw related to local match is the RVT was including some things as local match that really don't qualify. As local match. So, local match is really supposed to be a nonexchange transaction. Give me $10,000 to help fund transportation. And basically, there's no particular commitment or promise back in place. What we did see happening is that there was some trip services revenue that was being counted as local match. So if you would have an agreement with an employer or an organization to provide transit service to their door or as part of the route, and they would contribute money to the bureau, that, in some instances, was being treated as local match. And that's not local match. That's transportation revenue or passenger fares. Mrs. Katz stated So what you are saying is, if they used it, say, for special events and used the buses to transport people to the special events, that cannot be used as a match? Mr. Zettlemoyer answered That's correct. That would be -- passenger revenue. And in the past, the amount of passenger revenue that was run through the local share exceeded the shortfall on the local share that was collected. So it appeared on the surface like they were getting the full local share in, which is why this didn't appear in the past as an issue or a finding. On the cashflow statement, then, too, I do want to point out one of the items in here. The Act 44 funds, RVT is supposed to be doing public transportation. That's the primary focus. So the PennDOT grants and federal grants aren't approved for the payment of debt service. So you can see in the middle of the page here, we had payments on the line of credit of about $650,000. And payments on long-term debt about $395,000. Now the line of credit, if those funds were drawn on the line of credit, for transit purposes, paying for supplies or fuel or parts or inventory, that what about permissible. But if the amounts that are drawn on the line of credit were related to long-term debt, relate to things other than transportation or providing transportation activities, then that's not an eligible expense for the grant funding. Going to jump ahead a little bit in the financial statements to the footnotes. The footnotes -- and I'm just going to touch briefly on some of it. The footnotes start on Page 10 of the financial statement. And note -- the first three or four notes really talk about the accounting principles that are related to the bureau. What the bureau does. The budget responsibilities are requirements related to budgets. Those type of things it. And when we talk about the adverse opinion, it's a reiteration of things we have already talked about. And if we have our questions either through the meeting or offline, feel free to ask us. Note five restricted cash, again, those are funds that were received in grant related type of funds and they are restricted for grant related type of purposes. One of the things that is important not only with the bureau's cash, but also with the city's cash, is that those funds are either FDIC ensured or collapse rattized. And those are on behalf of the bureau. The grants receivable, we talked about a little bit. There's $2,740,000. The grants receivable through related parties, the $2,256,000. Tim, do you recall more details who those are from? Mr. Kraft Yes, the largest piece of that is due from the city itself, related to capital activity that passed through the bureau. And that is the majority of what is sitting in there. There is a piece that was about $400,000 that related to the LDC and that was subsequently collected after the end of the year. Mr. Zettlemoyer Note 7 is the capital assets It's really just a roll forward of the beginning capital assets, fixed asset editions to that, deletions related to that and then the balance. Now when you look at those -- one of the things that was noted during the audit process, that in capital assets for this year, there were a lot of assets that were being acquired through RVT that were city related assets and being put on the books of the bureau when they were state-funded assets. Those were taken out of the Bureau. Should be put over to the city. The funds that were expended are a component of a receivable from the city. As well. Note 10 is on Page 17. This is your unearned Act 44 money. So the funds that PennDOT has given you to run the transit system operations for which you have not charged expenses against them at this point in time, it's important to understand the grant agreements and it's very important to make sure that the expenses that are being applied to those grant funds are permissible under PennDOT's guidelines. And PennDOT issued some audit guidelines and grant guidelines, I believe in the 2015 time frame. Correct me if I am wrong, Tim. So those requirements are out there. They are published. They are on PennDOT's website. And, specify specific audit requirements that are supposed to be done and related to those grants. > The long-term debt that's on the books of the bureau, these are -- this is the debt maturity schedule for those. Again, we are not comfortable that all of this debt is truly bureau debt that's out there. But, based on the current agreements in place, the bureau had June 30th committed to these debt service payments of $769,000. Et cetera. Now, your operations of the transit system are funded through federal, state, and local operating grants. Those grants don't permit the debt service -- doesn't permit for the payment of debt service. So, in order for the bureau to pay this type of debt, it would need contributions or funding from another source, primarily the city, to make those payments. And some of this debt is due over to third-party entities. So, Williamsport Parking Authority, a debt agreement. I believe it was originally in the $1.5, or $2 million range. Again, can't use PennDOT money or FTA money to pay those debt service payments. Note 14 is risk management. That relates to your insurance pools for safety. One of the things that we did mention earlier this week on the finance committee call, I believe safety is looking at a program related to a hotline for -- a fraud hotline for individuals to call in, express concerns anonymously. If safety does do something along those lines, I would strongly recommend that the city and the bureau look into participating in that. If safety wouldn't do that, I would suggest you explore that avenue anyway in either regard to see if it's something that is a fit for the city. One thing I did make clear that your audit firm is not permitted to service that or be part of that fraud hotline.That would be an independent issue. Your auditor would be considered part of your internal control process and therefore not be independent. So it would need to be something that is apart from us as auditors of the bureau and whoever your auditors are for the city could not participate in monitoring that. We do have some findings that I want to talk about. I won't go into the pension plan, because this is just a slide off of RVT's portion of it and we aren't quite comfortable with the allocation of that. But if we can jump down to the findings, I'll touch onto ones that we haven't already talked about. So Page 50 starts the compliance audit component of the audit -- annual audit process. And your records are required to be audited in accordance with governmental auditing standards. As part of that, we test the compliance with certain rules and regulations. We look at compliance with grant agreements as part of that. We look at your internal control structure. And then, in looking at those systems and testing of those transactions, if we see something of concern, then we report it to the auditee in what's referred to as a schedule of findings and responses. I think we have five items that we were reporting here. And one of the largest ones or -- or the most prolific one was really the management's ability to override control. So you have a system of internal controls in place. Those systems are managed and controlled obviously by management. So, while we noted in here is a lot of transactions or a number of transactions appear to be outside of the appropriate approval process or compliance with grant agreements. And there was no system in place that was there to catch them or if it was, that system was overridden. And through the process of talking with some individuals, they had expressed some concern about those systems and those systems being overridden. If you had something like a fraud hotline or some type of reporting line for employees and other individuals, that would be a good compensating control that would help reduce exposure here so if somebody sees somebody doing something that they feel is not in compliance with policies, procedures, grant agreement that's in place, they would have a mechanism to report that, send that to council or its designated group could look at it, it could be your law firm, it could be some outside third-party could look at it. The finding along page 53, we talked about that improper payment of bureau expenses. We did see payments going through the records of the bureau that were for third-party entities. That they were not bureau or city related expenses. The items that are run through the bureau should be for the bureau activities and public transportation. If we flip to finding number 3, this is the one that we talked about related to the out of service area trips where Endless Mountain wrote a check on behalf of RVT for the purchase of three vehicles. And then RBT gave Endless Mountain a credit against its monthly bills for the trips that RVT provided to them. It went around the process of going through the approval process, going PennDOT. It circumvented the established processes that are there. Operating fund, improper use of operating funds. We talked about debt service. Act 44. There's no provision to pay debt service payments related to that of the we did look into principle and interest payments when we went through the income statement and the cash flow statement so we did see operating funds being used for debt service payments. That is not in accordance with the grant agreements. And then we also talked about the last finding on company page 56 which was the local operating match, where the local operating match was not properly collected from either the city, looking at the net amount, the amount the city wrote a check for and the net reimbursement it received. So if you look at what was collected from the city and the serviced municipalities, it did not meet the requirements for the local match. One of the other things that was noted during the audit process was that the other municipalities, there were bills generated for those other municipalities but those bills were not always sent out. And one of the things that we noted during the audit process this year -- there was some amount in the receivables as of July 1 of 2019, for the local match from neighboring municipalities or service municipalities. But during the year, those receivables were never collected and were ultimately written off the books. So, it wasn't an instance that is isolated to 2020. It appears to be an instance or circumstance that has preceded 2020. That's -- that's a pretty detailed overview of the financial statements. Does anybody have any specific questions for either Tim or myself? Mr. Allison-- let me go to finance. The finance committee. And we need to note that I think almost -- almost all of council was listening in one form or another during the finance committee meeting on this. So there may be questions from everybody. But I am going to go to Bonnie Katz Mrs. Katz When we see the bottom line of, on the very last page, where it says this represents a shortfall of $11.222 million, this That's $11,000. Oh, I'm sorry. I misread that. I know. In my own mind, I didn't mean to say it that way. These are all -- when we look at this audit, some of the expenses that have been done have been transferred over to city properties. And this is what you've been saying. It has been misproposeiated as far as using the funds that you cannot use transportation funds to finance some of the projects that were done in the city. And this has been going on for a couple of years at this point. Am I correct in stating this? Mr. Zettlemoyer from with as we have seen, it appears that these transactions did not just begin to occur in 2020. So yeah, I believe that it has occurred in prior years. That the abuse PennDOT act 44 grant. Mrs. Katz So therefore, anything that was done with the city with transportation funds is then going to be the responsibility of the city? To fund back to RVT for this? Mr. Zettlemoyer That's one of the things that I think it's important for the city to do is be in could be in contact PennDOT. PennDOT obviously knows there's issues or concerns here. At some point there will have to be a meeting of the minds between the city and PennDOT. Mrs. Katz On what appropriate amount of deferred or unused Act 44 funds should be. It comes back that there's a shortfall, we ask -- the city owes funds back to the (inaudible). Yeah, ultimately it would have to come from the city or there would be sometimes I've seen PennDOT do an allocation as a way of reimbursing PennDOT for that. So if you would normally get, we talked about $4 million. If you would normally get $4 million as an operating grant from PennDOT, they may reduce that on an annual basis until they recoup that amount that was spent on things other than grant purpose funds. >> I don't know if you can answer this question. This all has to do with Act 44 and PennDOT. And from -- we have never seen audits. Ok? This has been a new thing for all of us. To have seen these figures and anything related to RVT like this. But we were always under the assumption that pen do the was always going in and doing their own audits. Would they not have caught the fact that these grants from there were going toward city projects. I don't know if you can answer that or not. Mr. Zettlemoyer stated PennDOT doesn't do audits of its transit systems that it funds. If the transit's under the requirement of the grant agreements and the audit guide, are responsible to go out and hire an independent audit. They prescribe the procedures that are to be performed by the independent auditor and prescribe the format of the -- I don't want to say prescribed the format, but they have guidelines as to how the financial statement should be presented. But PennDOT in and of itself does not go out and do audit. One thing you might be thinking of is called the Triannual review. Every three years an Association with the Act 44 funding, PennDOT will go out and do a triennial review. They will look at policies, procedures, performance measures and things like that. But it's not as granular as looking at the financial statements from the auditor that we perform. Mrs. Katz stated wanted to clarify this. Because so many of us including citizens in it the city have heard this over the years and so I just wanted to clarify this for us and for the public. Of how this was done. Because I think we are all try to figure out how it all happened to get to this state at this point. Mr. Zettlemoyer. Penn Dot not come out and do audits. It also comes out every five year answer it's an Act 44 review. But as Tim said, part that have is looking at specific ratios and performance measures. It's not a detailed testing of, well show me this invoice for this purchase or this expenditure. So, what PennDOT does is completely different from an independent audit. Or a financial audit. Mrs. Katz stated she understood and just wanted to clarify that. Mr. Yoder guess maybe sum up the discussion after the present in finance, because that question is a really good segue. A lot of the discussion was about things we could do to ensure that maybe we could continue to get in compliance and stay in compliance. And you know, realistically, there are two fundational things that really I think enabled this kind of thing to happen. One is, inadequate checks and balances that have been out of whack for years and, you know, has made really good strides to address that already. With last year's work. And the other one, which at discussed and I think all of finance and the administration is in agreement, city council needs to have more formal and adequate oversight. We need a formal oversight committee and I know I've been barking up that tree for a number of months. You know. This validates that. And frankly the Act 44 performance review validates that, as well. I actually submitted legislation tonight to, for next week's agenda to hopefully we can get that addressed and I hope council will support that. The administration's made a lot of strides to correct these issues, which is great. I think we all applaud that. We need to make sure that we stay compliant. At one point, we were. We got out of whack. You know. And I think this will do that. Another general just I think comment that -- since Tuesday's meeting that I have been thinking through -- and this is for all of us. This is for council, the mayor, the administration, everybody in city government. You know, this is a really important issue. This is a monumental thing that we are figuring out and tackling. But there's a lot of other monumental issues that we are facing, as well. And, you know, it's great that we are figuring this out but it can't be the only thing we figure out and work through. We need to make sure we are still figuring out other large issues and making sure that they aren't falling by the wayside. Because if they do, the other overarching problems that there is going to make worse are going to continue to get worse. And we've got tools at our disposal to properly govern and combine these while we figure this out. We have to keep our eye on the ball and make sure we don't fall behind in other areas while we continue to address this. I am confident we will. Because I wanted to raise the point. It's easy for it to happen and it would be a really big shame for it to happen. Our constituents and future of the city demand that doesn't happen. That was the gist of the conversation, though, in finance. A lot of my questions have been answered at least individually. So I'll yield the floor to other members of council. So, thanks. Mr. Allison stated he had a couple. The overstated assets that you mentioned up in the, we will say the balance sheet section. What purpose for effect would that accomplish? I'm looking for -- the motivation to do that. I'm just surmising, but, those assets on there that are capital related, a lot of those were funded with debt. Mr. Zettlemoyer By putting the capital asset on the books, we also put the debt on the books of the bureau. Then utilized, appear to utilize the Act 44 funds to pay the debt service on those assets. Utilizing those Act 44 foppeds to pay the debt service is not in compliance with the debt, or with the grant agreements. Mr. Allison stated That makes total sense.Thank you. The other question I had was the noncollection of local match from other entities. Depending on the amount of years that went on. If we are going back on all things financial that weren't done right, is there a rationale to go back on those? Mr. Zettlemoyer Well maybe somebody from the RVT side or the bureau side can add to this and correct me if I am wrong. I am not 100% sure those municipalities that were billed ever knew they were being billed. So -- some of the bills were being held and never sent out. And -- can somebody add some clarification to that if that's incorrect? Mr. Winder answered That's 100% correct. And I'll just the Jersey Shore for example. We talked to Mr. Hoover at Jersey Shore because we did send him an invoice for his portion of lote cool share. He called right away and said he was unaware that they were ever supposed to pay it. They didn't budget it. You know. They just had no idea that it was theirs. So we are working collectively with all the municipalities to, you know, give them notification, figure out exactly what their local share should be. Because we aren't even sure that the numbers that were written down are the correct numbers based upon PennDOT's calculations of how you come up with a local share. I can't even tell you the city's local share is actually correct. Mr. Allison stated Well, I think all council knows that we did vote on that every year. So -- there's a record on that. Mr. Winder Right. The overall amount is correct based upon PennDOT. It's just the way you are supposed to calculate each municipality's share based upon ridership miles, hours of service, we just want to make sure we are doing everything right moving forward and why municipalities are contributing, et cetera. There's a lot that haven't paid or even knew they were supposed to pay. Mr. Allison asked a general question related not just to this particular audit. Throughout, we heard that there were things that you could identify but you were not comfortable with how the numbers were arrived at. And obviously for different things that were done over the years, that way. And this is out of the purview of RKL. Because you were looking at one fiscal year there of RVT. It seemed like it will be a monumental task to have these things unraveled. In a sense where we can have confidence that and figures that we may owe or someone else may owe is perhaps the administration can speak to that. What mechanism is in place that might be doing that or has it already been done? Mayor Slaughter answered Sure. As Mr. Zettlemoyer said, working with PennDOT and the FTA, so -- and I apologize to Department Secretary, I forget her married name off the top of my head. But her maiden name was Granger. Deputy secretary Granger, we have been working with her pretty much every single week. Well over a year and a half. We have also been in contact with FTA. And so, there's still, as Mr. Zettlemoyer noted, there's still work to be done both with administration council, PennDOT and FTA, to try and determine what that amount is. And then the mechanism in which we are going to -- if, you know, if we owe PennDOT and FTA money back, which clearly it sounds like we probably will, the mechanism to repay them. So -we are working through that right now. Clearly we haven't come to a determination of a figure. Or the way in which that will be repayed. I just spoke to deputy secretary earlier this week and again, she will -- she's planning I believe to come up here again I believe in early November in a few weeks here. So nonetheless, we have been and will continue to work closely with her and obviously keep city council abreast. We will continue to work with, you know, RKL as they finalize this year. And then moving forward, to make sure that everything is accounted. But, yeah, the big question is what do we owe back and how are we going to repay that. So, we just have work with PennDOT and FTA and as soon as we have a number, and a way, that's obviously going to have to be discussed. Mr. Allison Yeah. And I do agree with that. We need that number. But I think there's some other numbers that we need. From the other direction. What services were, of the city's side, were being used to underright things. I think -- to underwrite things. It's a complicated -- I'm he not going to say scheme, but it was a complicated operation with a lot of moving parts. And -- evidently, a fair number of those parts were not done according to legal requirements. So I think there's a little bit of a flow back and forth. Obviously not to the quid pro quo the same, but, you know, we would be interested in the city's, whatever transpired there. Mayor Slaughter >> Right. So we are working through that. Council approved I forget the name, Zelanofsky and Axlerod. They are working on our 2019-2020 audit. That will help on the city side. They are working on the city audit. As they work through that, clearly I think that will show what you are saying, Council President Allison on the city side. Some of that flow and money between the city and RVT and what amount the city, you know, per se, might be responsible for as related to what did RVT do on its own unrelated to the city and then what amount of debt or money, is, falls squarely on the city to repay. You know. Did we receive transit funds that we should not have received for any type of city projects, et cetera. And what was that amount and again, working with ZNA and PennDOT and FTA. So we have started that process. Obviously I don’t have a number at this point. But, hopefully in the not too distant future we will. But you are correct. It most likely will be money that falls squarely on the city and then there will be money that is only RvT and then maybe a little bit of both in some instances. Or, yeah. Or services that we provided to RVT that, the city didn’t get reimbursed for. Ok. Thank you. Those are all the questions I have right now. Anyone else? From council? All right. Well, thank you. Mark Mr. Zettlemoyer Thank you. If you have any questions at any point, please feel free to reach out to either Tim or myself. Tim. Thank you. Mr. Allison Thank both of you so much. And thank the administration for what you are doing. And, um – thank I want to thank council. We were all engaged in this initial report on Tuesday and it befits its importance, everybody got an initial briefing there. So – Gentlemen, we again thank you and, for the rest of us, this is a story that is to be continued. Mr. Allison asked for a vote on the resolution. The resolution was carried with six yes roll call votes. The vote was 6 to 0. All were in favor. Mr. Yoder voted yes, Mr. Mackey voted yes, Mr. Pulizzi voted yes, Mrs. Katz voted yes, Mr. Banks voted yes and Mr. Allison voted yes. Ms. Miele was absent. Resolution #9196 Resolution Setting City Council Meetings for Year 2022 The City Clerk read the resolution. Mr. Allison asked for a motion and a second on the resolution. Mr. Yoder made the motion and it was seconded by Mrs. Katz. Mr. Allison stated There were a couple of things I mentioned to, briefly to other council members. And one with Mr. Lubin. And so our initial meeting of the year is scheduled for Thursday, January 6, which is a Thursday. But, since it follows a municipal election, we have to have it on a Monday. So we will need an amendment on that. And th if we go down to the November section, we have a regular council meeting on the 10 and then the next meeting we th have, we skip the next Thursday, because it’s Thanksgiving. Then we move down to Monday, the 28 , to start our budget discussions. Generally, we do have a meeting before that so that we can get the budget and nd discuss it a little bit. But, to do that, we have to schedule a Tuesday the 22 meeting. And I spoke to Mr. Pavlov earlier and Mr. Pawlak can you jump in on this for a moment? Mr. Pawlak I guess my thoughts are, and, the solicitor can correct me if I am not correct in the way th my thinks, I guess there are two options. If we are not able for the 10 to have the budget completed and are still working through it, we could schedule a special meeting to deliver the budget to council. Or if council would like, we nd th th can schedule the meeting on the 22 . Just in case. And if we can have it done by the 10 , deliver it on the 10 and nd cancel the meeting on the 22 if there is no other business to discuss. So I guess those are the options that I thought of. Based on your discussions with you. nd Mr. Pawlak stated – I would recommend at least scheduling for the 22 . That way, if anyone has plans to make, they at least know there’s a potential for council. You can always cancel it. I think’s easier to schedule it now as opposed to rescheduling it then. Mr. Yoder stated and save some additional advertising. Mr. Yoder made a motion to amond the resolution to add Monday, January 3, 2022 as our reorganizational meeting and Tuesday, November 22, 2022 to be listed in chronological order in line with the rest of the dates. Mr. Banks seconded the motion. The amendment to the resolution was carried with six yes roll call votes. The vote was 6 to 0. All were in favor. Mr. Yoder voted yes, Mr. Mackey voted yes, Mr. Pulizzi voted yes, Mrs. Katz voted yes, Mr. Banks voted yes and Mr. Allison voted yes. Ms. Miele was absent Mr. Allison asked for a vote on the orginial resolution. The resolution was carried with six yes roll call votes. The vote was 6 to 0. All were in favor. Mr. Yoder voted yes, Mr. Mackey voted yes, Mr. Pulizzi voted yes, Mrs. Katz voted yes, Mr. Banks voted yes and Mr. Allison voted yes. Ms. Miele was absent. Resolution #9197 Resolution Approving an Administrative Services Agreement & Investment Advisory & Management Services Agreement with Empower Retirement The City Clerk read the resolution. Mr. Allison asked for a motion and a second on the resolution. Mr. Pulizzi made the motion and it was seconded by Mrs. Katz. Mr. Pawlak statedThis is a resolution to approve an administrative services agreement with empower retirement. Earlier this year or the end of last year I believe, Empower Retirement bought out the Mass Mutual retirement services. So, this is the resolution that we were – that they are requiring us in the agreement that they are requiring us to sign in record tore transfer the administrative services to Empower Retirement. This is for the city’s 457 plan, a deferred compensation plan that we offer to individuals or employees that wish to participate. This was reviewed by the solicitor’s office. And, also reviewed by the individuals at Wells Fargo who assist plan members with investment choices if they choose. One thing that I did notice, that I did forget to change, I didn’t bring it up in finance, but I think the resolution needs amendment to remove to reinvolve the advisory services from the title. And this was brought to council with a positive recommendation from the finance committee. Mrs. Katz stated This was brought to finance. Nothing has changed in the contract cost wise or anything else and I thank Joe has answered all the questions except to make an amendment on the resolution title itself. Norm, does that have to be done? Mr. Lubin answered Yes. Mr. Pawlak stated The title should read resolution approving an administrative services agreement with empower retirement. Mr. Yoder made a motion to modify the title to read resolution approving an administrative services agreement with empower retirement. Mrs. Katz seconded it. Mr. Allison asked for a vote on the amendment. . The amendment to the resolution was carried with six yes roll call votes. The vote was 6 to 0. All were in favor. Mr. Yoder voted yes, Mr. Mackey voted yes, Mr. Pulizzi voted yes, Mrs. Katz voted yes, Mr. Banks voted yes and Mr. Allison voted yes. Ms. Miele was absent Mr. Allison asked for a vote on the orginial resolution. The resolution was carried with six yes roll call votes. The vote was 6 to 0. All were in favor. Mr. Yoder voted yes, Mr. Mackey voted yes, Mr. Pulizzi voted yes, Mrs. Katz voted yes, Mr. Banks voted yes and Mr. Allison voted yes. Ms. Miele was absent Resolution #9198 Resolution Authorizing Execution of Agreement between City of Williamsport, Commonwealth, Dept. of Transportation, UPMC, Little League Baseball & Pennsylvania College of Technology The City Clerk read the resolution. Mr. Allison asked for a motion and a second on the resolution. Mrs. Katz made the motion and it was seconded by Mr. Banks. Mayor Slaughter stated this is the resolution. Whereas the applicant which in this case is UPMC, little league, Penn College and the city want to enter and use the state highway right of way for directal signage. What this – directional signage. It allows both partys to complete the project. As far as the city, we do not have any cost involved with this agreement and this signage upgrade. Basically this is along the beltway. UPMC is applying to have a few of the signs upgraded. Or – yeah. I guess upgraded, changed. With just upgraded language as far as the hospital, no longer Williamsport hospital, things of that nature. So that’s what this agreement permits. This was reviewed in finance. There was a slight change, I sent out to city council for Exhibit A. The UPMC just made a slight change with regard to the word “hospital.” And Norm Lubin did review that and said it was fine. Council does have an updated Exhibit A. Doesn’t change anything related to the agreement, though. This was reviewed in finance and revised by our solicitor, Norm Lubin. Mrs. Katz stated this was forwarded to Finance with a positive recommendation. This – of all. And, a couple of things here. Two of the signs is are being removed that say Divine Providence at this point. Because now it is strictly all UPMC. Am I stating that correctly, Mr. Hoffman? Mr. Hoffman Well it’s really no longer licensed as a hospital because it doesn’t have an emergency. It’s a Department of UPMC Williamsport now. >> And the other signages that are going up really are to clarify different areas at this point. You are cleaning up the signage. That’s what it really boils down to at this point. Mayor Slaughter said . Exhibit A just with the slight wordage change. Mr. Huffman Well I would just say that there’s five signs really that are a part of the scope of what we are requesting. Of course two being removed because it’s no longer appropriate to provide direction to divine Providence hospital since it’s really not a hospital any longer. The other three are basically name changes as the mayor has explained. What’s precipitated this is the craft gateway center project completed by the college. Currently they have directional signs exiting on to Market Street. They have a separate project underway to change their exiting signage to provide direction to exit off of Basin Street. It gives us an opportunity to add our name to the supplemental sign to have Westbound traffic exit onto Market Street instead of all the way to Maynard Street. Mr. Allison thanked Mr. Hoffman and asked Are there any other comments from council people? Hearing none, then we are finished here. The resolution was carried with six yes roll call votes. The vote was 6 to 0. All were in favor. Mr. Yoder voted yes, Mr. Mackey voted yes, Mr. Pulizzi voted yes, Mrs. Katz voted yes, Mr. Banks voted yes and Mr. Allison voted yes. Ms. Miele was absent Resolution #9199 Resolution Director of Department of Public Works – Scott Livermore The City Clerk read the resolution. Mr. Allison asked for a motion and a second on the resolution. Mr. Yoder made the motion and it was seconded by Mr. Mackey. Mayor Slaughter stated this is is an appointment as Director of public works as city council is aware, we have been attempting to fill this position for quite a while now. And for one reason or another individuals that were not able to accept the position. So, we are very fortunate tonight to have Scott Livermore with us. He has generously and graciously accepted. The position as Director of public works. Scott comes to us with significant background experience related to the Director of public works position. We are very happy to have him here. Joining the city. The salary is at $72,000. At finance we did discuss that. Because that is slightly more than what was budgeted in the salary line item. But, with Mr. Winder obviously pulling dual duties for the last year and a half or so, there was money left in there for the remainder of this year to cover the increased rate and we discussed that finance during budget sessions then the increased rate for 2022. So the remainder of 2021, there’s money in there to cover his salary. We also discuss at finance for the first – until he gets his feet wet, Mr. Livermore working and reporting to Mr. Winder but eventually obviously he’s the director and will , Mr. Livermore clearly would be director and no longer. But having Mr. Winder come from general manager of streets and parks, public works, we felt it make sense there. This was with a positive recommendation and this was reviewed by Mr. White. Solicitor White. Mr. Allison Thank you, Mayor Slaughter. Mr. Livermore would you care to say anything tonight? Mr. Livermore Yes. I just want to say hello to everyone. Thank you, Mayor, for the introduction. Yeah, I just, you know, am excited about the position and, you know, work with Adam closely. I come with 20 years construction experience. Scheduling, budgeting. Real excited to have the opportunity to work for the city and I do live in the city limits. So – real excited about it. Mr. Allison Well we are excited as well, Mr. Liver more. It’s been a long haul. And I know from several conversations with the mayor, the ups and downs of trying to get this filled. This was discussed in finance. Right? Mr. Yoder answered . I’ll take this one. This was forwarded to the full body with a positive recommendation. The mayor summed it up pretty nicely. There were a few items. We did discuss this is budgeted 12,000 I believe to be precise. There is enough money in there to still come in under budget. With that position being filled. The mayor is acutely aware of finding the money to support that salary in next year’s budget from somewhere else.was specifically discussed. And the item of reporting to Mr. Winder was also discussed. And generally filling this position is a good thing. When we look at the RVT item that we had a vigorous discussion about on Tuesday and was presented tonight one of the mechanism had a was discussed is previous leadership serving in multiple capacities. Would he have unfortunately done that up until this point I think predominantly by need. This gets us away from that practice which I think we all have wanted for a while and it’s very good to see. As the mayor had said, the other thing we did discuss is reporting to Mr. Winder for a short-term basis. We discussed that specifically. I think we all had a little bit of different varying opinions. For me personally, I would not like to see that. Even if it’s just a temporary basis. I think that it lends itself to what’s happened in the past. Even on a temporary basis, think it would be better if it didn’t happen. I think that educational aspect can happen as colleagues rather than as a direct reporting. I would formally ask the administration to follow that approach versus him directly reporting to Mr. Winder, if that’s also in compliance with the law that we updated and passed last year. But aside from that, this is good to see. So – and it was again forwarded to the full body of council with a positive recommendation. Mrs. Katz stated Yes I’ll take up where Liz asked a question and stated she was hoping that Scott Livermore would get up to speed with what’s going on in the parks and this is an area that I know is probably going to be very new to you, Mr. Livermore. The parks aren’t viable right now but in March and April, I think you will get a lot of things under your belt when it comes to that Dave Columbin certification will be getting in touch with you. Welcome aboard. I am very happy that you are living in the city. That was another requirement. And, very pleased. As we have all stated, the salary itself, gets kind of scary. When we realize, you know, what we have to attain for the next mpteen years, once you state a salary, it’s there. We have to make sure that our city grows in order to maintain some of these salaries that we are paying. I think it’s up to the administration to start looking to see where we can start building more income, to start covering some more of these expenses. Thank you. Mr. Banks stated l first I just want to say welcome aboard, Mr. Livermore.It’s good to have this position filled. One thing that hasn’t been hit on is this is a pretty multi facetted position. You have streets, parks and flood control. So there will be a steep learning curve. I’m sure Mr. Winder will bring you up to speed. Welcome aboard. Mr. Allison stated . , as far as the parks aspect, we do have a certified arborist in the fold at streets and Parks that I think will be a great source to rely on. Just a thought, um – Penn College has a lot of forestry and those kinds of things. You know, perhaps we could, if needed, we could tap into some of their resources to help in the transition. If needed. In those areas. The resolution was carried with six yes roll call votes. The vote was 6 to 0. All were in favor. Mr. Yoder voted yes, Mr. Mackey voted yes, Mr. Pulizzi voted yes, Mrs. Katz voted yes, Mr. Banks voted yes and Mr. Allison voted yes. Ms. Miele was absent TABLED Resolution Authorizing Equipment & Upfitting Cost for 4 2021 Dodge Durango Marked Police Vehicles The City Clerk read the resolution. Mr. Allison asked for a motion and a second on the resolution. Mr. Yoder made a motion to table items & and 8 and it was seconded by Mr. Mackey. Mr. Yoder asked For public record, for item 7 and 8, I know the mayor declared a state of emergency for emergency procurement. It might be a good idea to explain why we are tabling these so that the public is fully aware. Mayor Slaughter So over the past several weeks, a month or so, we had a number of our patrol vehicles went down. Public works, streets and parks, they have been doing a fantastic job of fixing them but unfortunately those patrol vehicles are just at end of life. And just can no longer be on the road. So, therefore, as we discussed in meetings, we are exploring lease options with Enterprise but due to supply chain issues we are about six to 12 months or more out. With being able to procure those vehicles. So working with chief Snyder, assistant chief Polke and Austin White our solicitor to procure these vehicles, what we needed to do was declare that emergency proclamation specifically related to the vehicles. And, we did a nationwide search for vehicles and there currently are four vehicles right now that are available for us to purchase. We were trying to skip Meme and Chelsea behr from our community development here in the city. We were hopeful that SDBG funds could be used. Originally the way we read that, we thought it could be because we were trying to do this emergency purchase. However there were some conflicting reports so we aren’t comfortable at this time using CDGB funds so they are looking into that matter further as the administration is also exploring financials to see if there are other areas where we have saved over the past year to be able to procure these vehicles. But the emergency proclamation was specifically related to vehicles and nothing else. The so there’s no other state of emergency. Just the vehicles. And what that allows us to do – six to 12 months to wait on these vehicles. Because we have to provide this service to the public. That was via recommendation by Solicitor White to do that. – police to respond to calls if it’s an emergency nature. So that’s the emergency proclamation. And, at this point, as I said, to table hopefully in the very near future, hopefully by the next n two weeks if not before, we will have a few solutions to council where we can procure these vehicles.> Mr. Allison Thank you, Mayor Slaughter. No other comments or questions? Mr. Mackey When I was listening to the mayor explain that, Mayor, you said we went on a national search for these vehicles. The way you made it sound, were these the only four vehicles we found? Mayor Slaughter That is correct. I’ll defer to Chief Snyder, but yes, they called all over the place. For police-rated vehicles and these are the only four. And they are currently being held for us right now. So they are holding them for us. That’s why we are obviously working extremely quickly and diligently to find the money to procure this to see where we have saved. So – Mr. Pawlak, myself, Chief Snyder, assistant chief, have been working very hard so these vehicles don’t go elsewhere. Obviously we I’m sure aren’t the only Police Department in the situation right now as vehicles are in short supply. Regular vehicles and Mr. is vehicles. So – you know, regular vehicles and police vehicles. The dealership is aware we want them and hopefully soon we can get that in front of council. Mr. Allison asked for the voted on tabling items 7 & 9. The resolution was tabled with six yes roll call votes. The vote was 6 to 0. All were in favor. Mr. Yoder voted yes, Mr. Mackey voted yes, Mr. Pulizzi voted yes, Mrs. Katz voted yes, Mr. Banks voted yes and Mr. Allison voted yes. Ms. Miele was absent TABLED Resolution Authorizing the Purchase of 4 Pursuit Rated Marked Units from the Cecconi’s Chrysler Complex The City Clerk read the resolution. Mr. Allison asked for a motion and a second on the resolution. The resolution was tabled with six yes roll call votes. The vote was 6 to 0. All were in favor. Mr. Yoder voted yes, Mr. Mackey voted yes, Mr. Pulizzi voted yes, Mrs. Katz voted yes, Mr. Banks voted yes and Mr. Allison voted yes. Ms. Miele was absent Resolution #9200 Resolution Awarding the City of Williamsport Bureau of Police Service Firearms & Related Equipment to Witmer Public Safety Group, Inc. & Atlantic Tactical Inc. The City Clerk read the resolution. Mr. Allison asked for a motion and a second on the resolution. Mr. Mackey made the motion and it was seconded by Mrs. Katz. Chief Snyder . We invited bids. The bid was open from August 30, 2021 until the closing on September 28 of 2021. Result of those bids were that Witmer public safety group incorporated was the lowest responsive bidder for the service handguns. Their base low bid was $6545 after trade-in. The initial cost of the firearms were $23,870 before trade in. Trade-in value was $17,325. With a difference as I said, $6545. That would be the cost for the firearms. Then for equipment related handgun equipment, Atlantic tactical incorporated was the lowest responsive bidder. Their base low bid was for $11467.50. There’s three items of equipment we are looking for. One was the tack if I calculate. The cost that they projected for that was $4299.90. For the holster, $5854.75. And then for the magazine pouches, listed at $1312.85 for a total of $11,467.50. That would put the total cost at $18,012.50 for both the firearms and related equipment. These bids were read publicly on October 5 in front of Williamsport city finance committee and the bids were provided to the solicitor, city solicitor, Mr. Austin White for review and he found they will to be comply ant with all the requirements. Contained in the ITB.. Mrs. Katz stated It was reviewed in finance. This bid is for 55 guns and number one, it’s under budget. Number two, this has been a line item for a couple of years. This is something the Police Department has needed for a long time. They also received good pricing on this. And, trade-in was a good price. So – but again, like I said, this is under budget and this was passed by full body of council with a full recommendation. Mr. Allison asked for a vote. The resolution was carried with six yes roll call votes. The vote was 6 to 0. All were in favor. Mr. Yoder voted yes, Mr. Mackey voted yes, Mr. Pulizzi voted yes, Mrs. Katz voted yes, Mr. Banks voted yes and Mr. Allison voted yes. Ms. Miele was absent Resolution #9201 Resolution Authorizing the Excavation of Certain Streets for a Gas Main Replacement Project by the City of Williamsport for UGI Utilities, Inc. Lafayette Parkway The City Clerk read the resolution. Mr. Allison asked for a motion and a second on the resolution. Mr. Yoder made the motion and it was seconded by Mr. Pulizzi. Mr. Gerardi. You have three resolutions. The reason you have three is each project is a little bit different due to the length of the project and time frame and so forth. So I bring you three resolution. The first is for the Lafayette parkway project, a joint project. Some of the lines they did were in – and the other in Williamsport. They will have base repair done which we require before asphalt plants close. They won’t have any milling and overlaying done. We request they extend that until spring. Then 45 days after that it will be done. Williamsport water department has them sometimes. It gives us a better product overall. Mrs. Katz stated Yes, it was. It did come to public works. I think Mr. Gerardi explained this thoroughly. It’s something that does come to us every year at this time of the year. And, this was passed onto the bull body of council with a positive recommendation. Mr. Allison asked for a vote. The resolution was carried with six yes roll call votes. The vote was 6 to 0. All were in favor. Mr. Yoder voted yes, Mr. Mackey voted yes, Mr. Pulizzi voted yes, Mrs. Katz voted yes, Mr. Banks voted yes and Mr. Allison voted yes. Ms. Miele was absent Resolution #9202 Resolution Authorizing the Excavation of Certain Streets for a Gas Main Replacement Project by the City of Williamsport for UGI Utilities, Inc. Tucker Street The City Clerk read the resolution. Mr. Allison asked for a motion and a second on the resolution. Mrs. Katz made the motion and it was seconded by Mr. Yoder. Mr. Gerardi This would be the Tucker Street project. I attached a map because it’s a larger project. All the base work done prior to the plant closing. When spring starts they will have 45 days to complete the project. If you have if I questions, more than happy to answer them. Mr. Allison asked for a vote. . The resolution was carried with six yes roll call votes. The vote was 6 to 0. All were in favor. Mr. Yoder voted yes, Mr. Mackey voted yes, Mr. Pulizzi voted yes, Mrs. Katz voted yes, Mr. Banks voted yes and Mr. Allison voted yes. Ms. Miele was absent Resolution #9203 Resolution Authorizing the Excavation of Certain Streets for a Gas Main Replacement Project by the City of Williamsport for UGI Utilities, Inc. Park Avenue Project The City Clerk read the resolution. Mr. Allison asked for a motion and a second on the resolution. Mrs. Katz made the motion and it was seconded by Mr. Pulizzi. Mr. Gerardi stated Well – the only thing I would add is that this is called the Park Avenue project. It runs from the pajama factory running east to third avenue. Probably about two years ago, third avenue to Haver street, the gas company went in and did the same thing. Basically from the pajama factory back to Hever street we would have a brand new road. Mr. Allison stated A pretty long stretch there. Quite an extensive project. And they did some, a little bit of side work off. Mr. Gerardi Correct. Usually they do side work if there’s a gas main going up. Think it goes from Park avenue on Rose close to third. The extension down that end. Mrs. Katz stated we sent this to the full body of Council with a positive recommendation. Mr. Allison asked for the vote. The resolution was carried with six yes roll call votes. The vote was 6 to 0. All were in favor. Mr. Yoder voted yes, Mr. Mackey voted yes, Mr. Pulizzi voted yes, Mrs. Katz voted yes, Mr. Banks voted yes and Mr. Allison voted yes. Ms. Miele was absent Mr. Gerardi If I could just add one thing. Public works last year we go through a lot of these. On one of the projects, Mr. Yoder, in front of your house a gas project started in spring and ended before the plants closed this year. Sometimes they do get in, depending on when they start. The project up by my house, it was Lundy drive and so forth up through that area, they started that in fall, asked for an extension of time. It’s now been milled and overlaid. We get a good product, sometimes they take a year, year and two months, the end result, it’s a really nice project. Everybody should like the roads when they are done.. And we did quite a few alleys this year. Mr. Allison stated they did quite a few alleys and he had talked to different residents who are pretty happy about what’s been done. Mr. Gerardi stated Adam Winder and Mr. Livermore will be working on it. Sometimes when they carry over to spring, it gets put on our milling project where we are doing half a street, them doing a half a street and overall it costs the residents, taxpayers, and even UGI individuals who pay for gas less money. It works out overall very well. Resolution #9204 Resolution Authorizing a Subcontract Agreement between City of Williamsport, Bureau of Transportation & Crawford Area Transportation Authority The City Clerk read the resolution. Mr. Allison asked for a motion and a second on the resolution. Mr. Yoder made the motion and it was seconded by Mrs. Katz. Mr. Winder if you don’t mind, I will tie the two of these together because it’s kind of going backwards. >> Endless Mountain put out an RFD per PennDOT’s requirements. As many of you are aware, River Valley transit has been managing Endless Mountain transportation since 2011. This management agreement and agreement with Crawford area transportation authority, they would both be two, or it would be two-year agreements with three one-year renewals. The dynamics of it is that Crawford area transportation authority brings some great abilities to the management team with legislative avenues, also the experience with shared ride. It complements. When it comes to Rivervalley thereaboutstation, we all work well together. It was awarded the highest by other transit agencies for this proposal with Endless Mountain transportation. The agreement between River Valley transit and Crawford area transportation authority would be for an annual amount of $20,800. Which would be reimbursed by Endless Mountain transportation. The agreement with Endless Mountain transportation would be for $213,100 annually. And it is a great working relationship with all three entities. We will answer any questions you have. Mrs. Katz stated it was reviewed in finance. I think we are all very pleased with what’s going on with Endless Mountain. And the Crawford area transportation. As we all know, we have heard for so many years that regionalization is the way to go. And, this has been working out now for I don’t remember, Adam, how many years now Endless Mountain. At least four or five? Mr. Winder answered10 years. Mrs. Katz Oh, my goodness. Time flies by. And it’s been working out beautifully. And, to have the contract again, I think, is good. In we talked at finance as far as expanding maybe other areas for regionalization, and other than that, I don’t have any other – anything else to say. This was passed with a positive recommendation. On both the resolutions. Mr. Yoder statted. This resolution was sent to the full body of Council with no recommendation. We had some questions some past questions we have had and given the audit report, what have you, we wanted to have a discussion in the broader group of council but councilwoman Katz’s points are accurate. When we are talking about regionalization, which is the future of transit, both of these position us very well to lead the effort regionally. These are all good things I hope we all support. I believe a lot of the questions we have had in the past have been addressed and are no longer happening. I think we are in a good spot. Mr. Allison asked for a vote. The resolution was carried with six yes roll call votes. The vote was 6 to 0. All were in favor. Mr. Yoder voted yes, Mr. Mackey voted yes, Mr. Pulizzi voted yes, Mrs. Katz voted yes, Mr. Banks voted yes and Mr. Allison voted yes. Ms. Miele was absent Resolution #9205 Resolution Authorizing an Agreement Between City of Williamsport, RVT, & Endless Mountain Transportation The City Clerk read the resolution. Mr. Allison asked for a motion and a second on the resolution. Mr. Yoder made the motion and it was seconded by Mr. Mackey. Mr. Winder stated I think I summed it all up. I did include in your packet what the oversight as far as management, or what the criteria is for the management services with Endless Mountain transportation. But, other than that, we will entertain any questions you may have. >> And this was reviewed in finance as well, as part of that package. Mrs. Katz stated Yes. And this was, as Mr. Yoder pointed out, we passed it on with no recommendation to get some questions answered and – I think we did get some of these. Questions answered. Mr. Allison stated. Other comments from council? I agree that there were certain circumstances and we certain will I heard some tonight in that audit. But, the concept is valid and the concept is very good so you don’t throw the baby out with the bath water. You get rid of the dirty water, clean the baby up and that process is underway. We need to be diligent about pursuing it Mr. Allison asked for a vote on the resolution. The resolution was carried with six yes roll call votes. The vote was 6 to 0. All were in favor. Mr. Yoder voted yes, Mr. Mackey voted yes, Mr. Pulizzi voted yes, Mrs. Katz voted yes, Mr. Banks voted yes and Mr. Allison voted yes. Ms. Miele was absent Resolution #9206 Resolution Consolidated Capital Grant Application to File Application & to Certify Local Match The City Clerk read the resolution. Mr. Allison asked for a motion and a second on the resolution. Mrs. Katz made the motion and it was seconded by Mr. Pulizzi. Mr. Winder stated This is capital grant application, resolution to file application and to certify local match. This is an annual resolution that comes before you for the Williamsport Department of Transportation. The overall capital grant would be $1,673,480 with 15, 14 state discretionary trust funds that would require $55,770 match. It does replace quite a few items which I have attached to summary. I could certainly run through them if you would like or I could sum them up real quick. I.T. equipment, roof coating on the facility here at 1500 West Third Street. Garage door replacement, and, the support vehicle replacement.Pickup trucks, an all-inclusive service truck for the maintenance department to go out and hopefully repair buses on the road versus having them towed. All of these items are part of our CPT program and, basically,the state says that they met their useful life so the state's willing to replace them. With a small match from the transportation department we do have the $55,770 for the match in the capital grant local match account. This was reviewed by finance and passed forward with a positive recommendation. Mr. Yoder stated I will take it quick. Yes, this was reviewed in finance and I believe it went through the full body of council with a positive recommendation. We didn't have much discussion surrounding this one. As we have noted, we see this every year. This is a standard operating thing within RVT so nothing super crazy. Mr. Winder kind of gave a great overview. One point of clarification, I don't recall discussing this in finance and it came to me here after the second review of the audit. I know that was one thing that was captured in the audit was that this procedure was not carried out properly before. Did we use the proper procedure to put this one together and go out? Or is that a -- will that take effect on the next one? Mr. Winder this one we used the proper procedure. We were -- how do I want to say it -- heavily looked at for our capital grants project this year due to things that were noted in the budget. We did have a discussion with Mr. Livitski from PennDOT prior to them essentially saying they were going to approve it. We had to go, you know, definitive clarification of exactly what we were doing, what the needs were, et cetera. So this was done 100% properly. Mr. Yoder Perfect. That's good to hear. If you would be so kind as to send that over after the fact, I would be curious just to see what all that looks like as far as the documentation you had to provide and what have you. Just for my own educational purposes. But that's good to hear. I am -- I figured as much, but just wanted to clarify. So I will yield the floor to other members of council. Mr. Winder replied Absolutely. Thank you. Mr. Allison asked if there were Other questions or comments The resolution was carried with six yes roll call votes. The vote was 6 to 0. All were in favor. Mr. Yoder voted yes, Mr. Mackey voted yes, Mr. Pulizzi voted yes, Mrs. Katz voted yes, Mr. Banks voted yes and Mr. Allison voted yes. Ms. Miele was absent Accept for filing: Finance Committee Minutes 9/07/21 Williamsport Water & Sanitary Authority Minutes 08/25/21 nd 2 Quarter Financial Report Mr. Allison asked for a motion and second to accept these for filing. Mr. Yoder made the motion and it was seconded by Mr. Banks. The minutes were accepted for filing with six yes roll call votes. The vote was 6 to 0. All were in favor. Mr. Yoder voted yes, Mr. Mackey voted yes, Mr. Pulizzi voted yes, Mrs. Katz voted yes, Mr. Banks voted yes and Mr. Allison voted yes. Ms. Miele was absent Announcements The next regularly scheduled City Council meeting will be held on Thursday, November 4, 2021 at 7:00 PM, Remote. Upcoming Meetings: Friday, October 23 11:00 AM ERC Wednesday, Oct.27 11:30 AM Redevelopment Authority* Monday, November 1 12:00 PM Planning Commission* Tuesday, November 2 11:30 AM Public Safety 1:00 PM Finance Meeting 2:30 PM Public Works Meeting Thursday, November 4 7:00 PM City Council meeting All meetings are held remotely unless indicated with an * asterisk, whereas will be held at Trade & Transit, rd II, 144 West Third St, 3 Floor, Williamsport, PA. Mr. Allison asked for any comments from members of City Council. There were none. Mr. Allison asked for any comments from the administration. Mr. Allison asked for any comments from the general public. Anything from the public, Mr. Lubin Both Mr. Lubin and Mrs. Frank reported no public comments to them. Mr. Allison stated We are working on another format to access public comments. This is a little clunky, this one. Hopefully sooner rather than later, we can get back to in-person meetings. Think we need to have that discussion. When that would be appropriate. So, with budget coming up and all of that. In any case, that brings us to the close. Is there a motion to adjourn? Adjournment Mr. Allison asked for a motion to adjourn Meeting adjourned upon motion by Mr. Yoder and a second by Mr. Pulizzi. Meeting adjourned at 9:05 PM with unanimous ayes. Submitted by: Janice M. Frank City Clerk