City Council

Thursday, March 28, 2024 7:00 PM Williamsport, PA Council President Adam Yoder brought the Williamsport City Council meeting to order on Thursday, March 28, 2024, at 7:00 PM.at Trade & Transit Center II, 144 West Third St, Williamsport, PA. This meeting was duly advertised in the Williamsport Sun-Gazette. Council members present: Also, Present: Adam Yoder, President Derek Slaughter, Mayor,, President Mr. Willia Eric Beiter, Vice President August Memmi Liz Miele, Councilwoman Sam Aungst, Fire Chief, Adam W Randy Allison, Councilman, Justin Snyder, Police Chief absent Chief He Vincent Pulizzi, Councilman Solicitor Austin White Jon Mackey, Councilman, Janice Frank, City Clerk absent Bonnie Katz, Councilwoman Scott Livermore Scott Liv Absent: Kris Black Randy Allison Bill Scott Elizabeth Miele Members of the public Approval of the Williamsport City Council minutes for 03/14/24 were approved upon a motion by Mr. Pulizzi and a second from Mr. Beiter. All were in favor. The vote was 5 to 0 Mr. Joseph Pawlak Limited Courtesy of the Floor . There were none. Mr. Joe Pawlak Resolution #9758 Mr. Gary Knarr Resolution Authorizing Submission of Grant Application to theMr. Tom Dept. of Conservation & Natural Resources for C. Dean Cillo Young’s Wood Park Improvement Dave Young, Police Chief Project Chief He Sol. J. David Smith Mr. Yoder asked for a motion and a second. Janice Frank, City Clerk, absent Mr. Pulizzi made the motion and it was seconded by Mr. Beiter.Todd Heckman, Fire Chief , Ms. Fessler stated for your consideration is a resolution authorizing summation of a grant to Dept. of Conservation & News Media Natural Resources, if funded the grant one is for the revitalization of a Young's Wood Park, including the following upgrades. Moving a pavilion and replacing it with a new pavilion. Picnic tables, trash cans, all-inclusive playground equipment, parking lot paving, Walking Trl., Senior exercise amenities, bike racks, removing of existing installation of new sidewalks, benches, a rain garden, and a pickle ball court. The expected project cost is over $600,000 and funds are being sought through the Dept. of Conservation & Natural Resources Members water of News Media and conservation fund, which is a Members of the news media project minimum of a $600,000. This grant requires a 15% match that is being thought through with productive conversations with a grant matching - - secured to the states GTRP funding, if the project match funds are not secured, the scope of the project would decrease or we would break the project into phases in order to complete it. Mr. Yoder: Very cool. This was reviewed in finance, Mr. Beiter can you review finance this evening? Mr. Beiter One of the biggest questions we had is what with the scope of the project be if we were not able to receive one or the other grandson that was touched upon. Glad to see something we would still pursue. The park is in need of rehab and we've done a great job making sure with our ARPA funding that we've gone through and revitalized many of the city parks, this is just one on that list. Unfortunately with ARPA running being expended for the most part at this point we have to explore other avenues so I appreciate that you are diving right into it. Mr. Yoder Thank you Mr. Beiter. Any questions or comments for members of Council on the resolution? Mayor Slaughter, remind me, we're going to the parts plan grant right now, where is that act? Remind me when we are into stated to have that? Mayor Slaughter: Throughout this year we had the initial kickoff meeting in February and another one is coming up, I want to say here in April. There is going to be five or six stakeholder meetings and they will come out with that schedule so it is about a 12 month process so by the end of this year, very early 2025 they should have that full compensation plan completed. Dept. of Conservation & Natural Resources is obviously a part of that. As they have been saying all along, continue to do the projects that we are doing. This is obviously a Dept. of Conservation & Natural Resources grant so Dept. of Conservation & Natural Resources actually was the one who commanded the land and water conservation fund to continue to do the park upgrades in conjunction with the comprehensive plan update. As soon as I know the next meeting, I think Liz, Councilwoman Miele is the representative, but I will keep you posted. Mr. Yoder: I meant to talk to her tonight, but she was not going to make it. Mayor : That was just the kickoff meeting, but we have the meet up coming up in the next 3-5 months probably and that will be stakeholder meetings all across the city with everyone. That obviously will be very public. Mr. Yoder: Now. Certainly. That is awesome. I’m excited to see what comes out of that. Good stuff. Thank you. Other questions? Mr. Mackey? Mr. Mackey: Has there been any discussion on rest facilities? Is there water service to that park? I cannot remember. Mayor: I don’t think so. We have not talked about restroom facilities. With Young’s Wood, we could. I could ask Bill Scott or Scott Livermore if there is water out there. Mr. Mackey : And trying to determine if there is something in that list that we could do without that rest facilities may be better. Again, we have talked about this in the past. I feel like rest facilities at all of our parts is something we really need to start doing. Mayor: This project has to be at least $600,000, right? So it is minimum $600,000. I think we could probably, in addition to add that in. Mr. Mackey: I know there probably has to be options for rest facilities that do not need water lines run to them.  Mayor: We can add that to the scope. Mr. Mackey: Great. Thanks. Mr. Yoder: Any other comments or questions? Okay. Hearing and seeing none, Mr. Mackey. The resolution was carried with 5 yes roll call votes. The vote was 5 to 0. All were in favor. Mr. Mackey voted yes, Mr. Pulizzi voted yes, Mrs. Katz voted yes, and Mr. Yoder voted yes. Mr. Allison & Ms. Miele were absent. Resolution #9759 Resolution by Municipality Certifying Provision of Local Match for State Operating Financial Assistance Mr. Yoder asked for a motion and second. Mr. Pulizzi made the motion and it was seconded by Mr. Beiter. Mr. Todd Wright. This is a resolution by municipality certifying vocal match for stay operating financial assistance. This is an annual resolution that certifies the city of Williamsport's contribution towards River Valley Transit Authority section 13-14 operating subsidy. Our FY 24' allocation is north of $5.8 million, which is a 6% increase over our FY 23 allocation. The local match total contribution is $493,385, which went up 5% over FY 23'. The city's contribution that we calculate these based on scheduled revenue miles is $297,417.02 and we have commitment from Lycoming County and we also collect from it nine other municipalities for the remainder of the amount. Mr. Yoder: Thank you Mr. Wright. This was also reviewed in finance Mr. Beiter. Mr. Beiter It was. Again, this is something we have done in the past. The only question I had at the time is making sure other municipalities were aware as to what this local match was contributing towards for them to receive bus services from River Valley Transit Authority and we have had all other municipalities come on board with that and Councilwoman Katz brought up the Lycoming Mall where we previously had service, but never click today match in the past. Obviously that was well before your time there and that is something we were unable to do. Mr. Wright: That would fall under a route to guarantee as opposed to local match, but with the change in ownership and everything, but what was there before them, but something we have done with our advertising and whatnot, our non-subsidy operating revenue, we have been doing very well and exceeding the expectation and budget for where that falls in place. The bus wraps and the shelter, we have been using a company and they have done very well for us. Mr. Beiter: Very good. That was all from us. Mrs. Katz : It is interesting to see a Wright name on the agenda after so many years. I know you do not remember that. The question I have is, at one point several years ago you were going to go after Lockhaven, has that been dropped completely or is it still in progress of anything? Mr. Wright : We did the technical assistance grant, the route did not form as well as we had expected so PennDOT discontinued that for full service. My predecessor put in place for a couple of days, a week, Friday and Saturday. What we are seeing is not so much people riding in Clinton County, is people from Williamsport that want to visit the super Walmart in Lockhaven of all things. Whether or not we continue, I would be looking at next fiscal year to consider whether or not we continue to provide that. Mrs. Katz Who applies for this? Would say well, what they apply for this? How does that work? Mr. Wright : It would fall to either the city of Lockhaven or Clinton County if they would like to see some sort of service. I know STEP is running dedicated service in Clinton County, even what I have been told at PennDOT they are seeing some utilization, but not what would be something that would garner fixed route service. Mrs. Katz.: Okay. Just curious because I know it was brought up before to do that. Thank you. The resolution was carried with 5 yes roll call votes. The vote was 5 to 0. All were in favor. Mr. Mackey voted yes, Mr. Pulizzi voted yes, Mrs. Katz voted yes, and Mr. Yoder voted yes. Mr. Allison & Ms. Miele were absent. Resolution #9760 Resolution of the City of Williamsport City Council Authorizing the Valuation of Components of Structures at 1500 W. Third St. in Williamsport, PA Mr. Yoder asked for a motion and second. Mr. Pulizzi made a motion and it was seconded by Mr. Mayor, what you have before you is a resolution authorizing the valuation of various components of the structures at 1500 W. 3rd St., which is art of understanding the amount of money that was placed into the structures and any of the federal portion that is left there that we could still owe. We want to get an idea what that number is and look at options from there. Mr. Yoder Thank you Mayor Slaughter, this did not go to committee, I will add context because seven a and nine are interrelated here. I think everyone is aware of the past couple of years we have gone through a process to begin transitioning RVTA into an authority, they created an authority a year and 1/2 ago, almost 2 years ago and as that process continues this is another component of kind of that decoupling is going through the assets that are utilized by RVTA that have transit funding in them and trying to align them and get them in the hands of the appropriate stakeholders. So with 1500 W. 3rd St., that is the public works building, right? So part of what we are hoping to do here is - to the mayor's point, getting a clear idea of what is left in federal state transit interest and kind of seeing what our options are in terms of what makes most sense to explore that staying in the city's hands, right? So as not to exceed $9500, this is essentially an appraisal. Nothing super crazy there. A little bit of additional context as we go into items eight and nine. Any comments or questions from members? On the item? Hearing and seeing none. The resolution was carried with 4 yes roll call votes. The vote was 4 to 1. All were in favor. Mr. Mackey voted yes, Mr. Pulizzi voted yes, Mrs. Katz voted no, and Mr. Yoder voted yes. Mr. Allison & Ms. Miele were absent Resolution of the City of Williamsport Lease Real Property from RVTA located at 100 W. Third St, 144 W. Third St, 127 West Fourth Street & 11 West Church St, all in Williamsport, PA Mr. Yoder asked for a motion and a second. Mr. Pulizzi made the motion and it was seconded by Mr. Beiter. Mayor : Good evening members of Council and administration, this resolution goes hand-in-hand with item 9. Transfer of the property - - lease agreement - someone would need to be updated and others we would be updating those lease agreements and that is what this resolution for the lease of real property from transaction, they created the authority, transfer the properties, update the lease agreement. Mr. Yoder: Absolutely. This also did not go to a committee. I'm going to throw an idea out here. I think there would be a good idea to table this one ine. These are both things that we need to do and generally want generally want to do. Their complicated items and even yesterday there were things that popped up, whether it is language or etc. that we need a couple more weeks to go through. So I think tabling is a good idea. Keeps it in front of us and I think we have got pretty much everything now, but I think it would be prudent to take a couple extra weeks to ensure we have all the details hashed out to ensure that this goes as smooth as possible. Okay? I will make that motion to table. Is there a second? Mr. Pulizzi seconded it. The resolution was tabled with 5 yes roll call votes. The vote was 5 to 0. All were in favor. Mr. Mackey voted yes, Mr. Pulizzi voted yes, Mrs. Katz voted yes, and Mr. Yoder voted yes. Mr. Allison & Ms. Miele were absent Resolution for Transfer of Real Property to River Valley Transit Authority Mayor . As I mentioned in a previous item, this is resolution to transfer the real property to the authority to River Valley Transit Authority as they created an authority and now the items, the transit assets get transferred. Mr. Yoder: Thank you, Mayor Slaughter. As referenced in item 8, item 9 as well, this reflects actually transferring property to RVTA that they predominantly operate out of and in line with item eight I think there's a couple little things that have popped up related to what happens to them down the road under particular circumstances that I think we are still flushing out. I fully expect that we will transition this. I think we just need a couple more weeks to flush out some final details on that. So I will make the motion to table item 9 as well. Is there a second? Mr. Pulizzi seconded it .. Mr. Beiter : One thing I want to stress about all of this is what this transfer property, Elm Park is included in those parcels for the public interest. The city is making sure that particular portion of property is parceled off and that is all part of what the discussion is that we are trying to have with legal counsel and make sure that is done correctly, which is why we're not taking action on this tonight in voting to table. Also when we go back up to item number seven, authorizing the valuation components, that is part of that as well. We would like to make sure that we get this information back in the valuation company so we know exactly what we're getting into to keep our hands to retain the parks and trees so we can keep our part of Elm Park. Mr. Yoder: Absolutely. Any other comments or items of discussion related to the motion to table? Hearing and seeing none. The resolution was tabled with 5 yes roll call votes. The vote was 5 to 0. All were in favor. Mr. Mackey voted yes, Mr. Pulizzi voted yes, Mrs. Katz voted yes, and Mr. Yoder voted yes. Mr. Allison & Ms. Miele were absent Accept for filing Finance Minutes 8/29 & 9/26/23 Mr. Yoder asked for a motion to accept these for filing. Mr. Pulizzi made the motion and it was seconded by Mr. Beiter. The minutes were accepted for filing with 5 yes roll call votes. The vote was 5 to 0. All were in favor. Mr. Mackey voted yes, Mr. Pulizzi voted yes, Mrs. Katz voted yes, and Mr. Yoder voted yes. Mr. Allison & Ms. Miele were absent Announcements The next regularly scheduled City Council meeting will be held on Thursday April 11, 2024 at 7:00 PM, Trade & Transit II, 144 West Third St. 3rd Floor, Williamsport, PA. We had an executive session in the matter of real estate. Upcoming Meetings: Friday, March 29 CITY HALL CLOSED GOOD FRIDAY Monday, April 1 12:00 PM Planning Commission Tuesday, April 9 11:30 AM Public Safety Committee 1:00 PM Finance Committee 2:30 PM Public Works Committee Wednesday, April 10 9:00 AM ERC Thursday, April 11 7:00 PM City Council Meeting Comments: a. City Council Mr. Pulizzi: I did have one thing. Seeing that Mr. Livermore is not here. I know this only because I texted him to ask myself. I have it here in front of me, but I want to let everybody know that street cleanup for streets and parks begins April 15 and ends on May 10. So I have actually gotten quite a few texts and people asking me about it. Mr. Yoder: You said April 19? Mr. Pulizzi : April 15 and ends May 10. Those are the dates. Thank you. b. Administration Mayor: That the egg hunt is rescheduled for this Saturday at Brandon Park from 1:00 o'clock to 4:00 o'clock, fingers crossed that it holds off. Egg hunt on Saturday. Mr. Yoder: If you have to call it, will you try to do with the following weekend? You will still try to do it again? Gotcha. Hopefully the weather holds. It is a good event. My 2 1/2-year-old enjoys going every year for sure. Thank you Mayor Slaughter. Any other comments? c. Members of the Public d. News Media  : Alright. I am Chase with WDIA. I did not get to meet John yet, nice to meet you. I'm a newcomer to Lycoming County. A couple of the questions I have are a little redundant. Probably what counsel already talked about recently. Basically I'm working on something on the current housing issue in Lycoming County and Williamsport and I am aware of County - the county today approved the oak family grant, which is going to help like 125 homeless in Wall Township. I've also met with Jason Fink from the Chamber of Commerce who has enlightened me on a lot of the issues that Lycoming County has on quality of housing, as well as the depreciation of population, which is about -1.3% since 2020. A lot of factors that go hand-in-hand. My question for the Council and the mayor if he is able, what has Williamsport city been doing to help with the housing? Any initiatives, funding, plans in the works Mayor: Going to put me on the spot. It is good. It is all good. So yeah, we do have some housing things that are out there. City Council has allocated $1 million to our land bank and redevelopment Authority, both, the RDA took action yesterday on a house and we are doing a few things simultaneously. One of them is to try to address some blighted properties. The blighted property commission and the RDA. We are doing a lot on that front right now. The RDA is going to be pedal to the middle the next couple months particularly to acquire initially some of the worst of the worst homes that have been out there for many many years. Skip in our community development apartment is working on that as well. You will see that. There is housing going up that is by the high school that Council supported and administration partly with some ARPA funds for that. I'm blinking on the actual name, Wisteria Lane. There is one in Newberry, that actually went to zoning hearing board and went to the court and back to the zoning and hearing board. That is a townhome project that could be going. We have obviously over here, build YMCA, which is moving along and should be finishing up soon. As you know, Williamsport, many third class cities are landlocked so as we look at - we had this discussion yesterday in RDA, a targeted approach, if there is an area where we can sort of target if there is a number of the blighted and/or homes that are able to be rehabbed to start looking at that and do a heat map. So we are looking at, housing, housing, housing is what everybody talks about throughout the entire country and having a menu of housing. From affordable to workforce housing, to the upper echelon, upper middle and higher and housing. That is what most cities, and again I was at PML this morning, and housing,. It is everywhere, we are trying to work on and what we can do, as much as we can do to get - a lot of times when you say "affordable housing" people think low income, but affordable housing for people that are working, workforce housing, people that can afford a house. In the traditional sense we think if you have a job, you can get a house, but we know particularly the last few years with inflation and such that is not always the case and Bethlehem's mayor gave an example of people are in a shelter taking the bus to work, but they are working. So that is what we are working on. That is what across the country we are working on. I think hopefully we will see new housing. We will see some new housing stock come in and some rehabbed housing and RDA, we had a conversation about the ones that are so bad we demo them, get a blank parcel and hopefully sell the parcel to new single-family homes. Media Thank you, Mayor. When I did research to the census, one of the houses and Williamsport era was built before 1939, a majority of them were. Like 3000 or more. Mr. Beiter Something the mayor forgot to mention among the plethora of things he did, is not just the city, but the county, first community foundation as well as the Chamber of Commerce making a significant investment with an organization called Arctaris one of the primary goals with set forth for them as market rate housing and they will be investing in the federal opportunity zones, all three of which are located within the city Williamsport, most notably in the East End where we have our (WORD?) as well. That is applying for townhomes, and that has changed a bit. Phase 2 might be coming before phase 1, that is a $5 million investment that organizations will be making that will then be leveraged with up to $20 million from Arc Terrace and that is a 10 year timetable that they have to invest in those properties given the laws that come with the federal opportunity. Media Arctaris , they are local with the chamber? They are not local with the chamber, they are an outset organization from the New England area. I think particularly Boston. Media : I think Jason mentioned that before when I met with him. Mr. Beiter That has been about a year that we've been working with ourselves, the county, and the other two organizations. I've had a lot of success in the city of Baltimore and in Ohio, and also Erie, Pennsylvania where significant investment such as the $25 million have been leveraged and rolled into, I believe it is over $80 million in the city of Erie, Pennsylvania, which is helped revitalize the downtown. Mr. Beiter : Thank you as well for coming. Media : I have one more question. It is regarding - I'm sure you guys probably mentioned it recently a lot of people were talking about it considering it was just approved by the county, but the Susquehanna River walk, I'm hoping to get comments on how you feel it will help the city, tourism, all sorts of stuff. Mayor: You're talking about the extension? Bill Scott is our city engineer and he has been reviewing that. We've been working hand-in-hand with the county on that, the right of ways and all of that as they work through the extension, the planning, it is going to be great. Our Riverwalk is fantastic and is continues to make its way to the West and, you know, the rails and trails that are out there, Pine Creek and all of that. We are very excited about it and we're looking forward to that project and to that being completed and extending the Riverwalk. I think everybody really enjoys that and as was mentioned earlier with all of the recreation things we're doing, and we saw during the pandemic that people love outdoor recreation. We have a lot of it here and it attracts people into our city and in downtown to the restaurants and things as well and our hotels. If we can continue to, you know, do these types of projects and get folks here enjoying what we have to offer, I think it helps all of us. I'm excited about it and looking forward to that expansion. Just to plug one other thing really quick, that Councilwoman Miele probably would if she was here, first time homebuyers program, speaking of housing, we did at two this year. We've done two already, we have a first-time homebuyers program to our community development office and we encourage folks to take advantage of that as well. Media : Can you explain the benefits with that? Mayor : There's a lot. You don't have to have as much capital for example. So you can come in - there are benefits and they can reach out to community develop into inquire about that. There are requirements to it. Low/moderate, not to jump back, but as far as the Riverwalk we are excited about that.  Media : Awesome. That is all the questions I have. Thank you Council and Mayor Adjournment Mr. Yoder asked for a motion to adjourn. Meeting adjourned upon motion by Mr. Pulizzi and a second by Mr. Beiter. Meeting adjourned at 7:38 PM with unanimous ayes. Submitted by: Janice M. Frank City Clerk