City Council

Thursday, January 22, 2026 7:00 PM Williamsport, PA Council President Eric Beiter brought the Williamsport City Council meeting to order on Thursday, January 22, 2026 at 7:00 PM.at Trade & Transit Center II, 144 W. Third St, Williamsport, PA. This meeting was duly advertised in the Williamsport Sun-Gazette. Council members present: Also, Present: Eric Beiter, Council President Derek Slaughter, Mayor, absent Mr. Willia Vincent Pulizzi, Vice President Valerie Fessler Liz Miele, Councilwoman Tracey Harer, , Fire Chief, Adam W Jonah Milliken, Councilman, Justin Snyder, Police Chief, absent Adam Yoder, Councilman Solicitor Nicholas Grimes Jon Mackey, Councilman, Janice Frank, City Clerk Bonnie Katz, Councilwoman Jamie Livermore Absent: Scott Livermore, S&P Kris Black Adam Welt3rroth, Treasurer Bill Scott Members of the public Approval of the Williamsport City Council minutes of 01/08/26 approved upon a motion by Mr. Pulizzi and second from Mr. Milliken. All were in favor with a vote of 5 to 0. Limited Courtesy of the Floor There were none. Mr. Joseph Pawlak Mr. Beiter changed the order of the agenda. . Resolution # 10001 Mr. Joe Pawlak Resolution Rejection all Quotes Received for EmergencyMr. Gary Knarr Owner Occupied Housing Rehabilitation & Mr. Tom Cillo C. Dean Authorizing the City to Take Such Action that is necessary to obtain a Reasonable Quote Dave Young, Police Chief Chief He The City Council read the resolution. Sol. J. David Smith Mr. Beiter asked for a motion and second. Janice Frank, City Clerk, absent Mr. Milliken made the motion and it was seconded by Mr. Mackey Todd Heckman, Fire Chief , Mr. Austin Daily . Tonight we are here to talk a it be community development News Media black grant emergency rehab program. We put out bids for three homes involved in the program. We unfortunately only received one bid each for two of the homes and zero bids for the final home. So unfortunately, we have to reject those per our procurement standards. The program itself our office runs. And basically what we do is we field calls from homeowners who have emergencies. So roofs. Plumbing issues. Things like that that are can’t way for us to move on other funding programs or refer them Members of News Media out to other agencies. And so they come to us. And we are able to work Members them of the through news media a limited pool or funds that we are set aside each year. The issue we ran into this time was that when we rent out for the pre-bids we had questions from the contractors. Specifically regarding like bid spe cs and things like that because I am not trained to do, I can go out and help with our teams and see this is an issue and we need to fix it and anyone can look at a roof and fix a quiet hole And we need to make this not have that. So but unfortunately we don’t have anyone on our team or codes department that can go out and say yes there’s a problem here but this is how much we can fix it and how much it costs to go out and get good bids for the city and homeowners. Our ask tonight is to reject the bids we received for homeowners. They may have been able to sub out t what they were not qualified for.but without them having proper bid specs it made it way more difficult than it needed to be on their end to justify putting in a bid for a singular home like this. Annually, our department is at $75,000 per year for these homes. (captioning technical issues) And give them an approximate cost so we know what’s in the allowable range. Ms. Miele Does seem like the program comes with so much paperwork it would be daunting to take that on. So we need people to meet that. Thanks, Austin. Mrs. Katz understanding is we have people that do electric, it would be to my understanding that we do a list of people who do roofing and for infrastructure. I think it might help you and might help everybody. I’m assuming it won’t come out to an amount that would require council approval? Mr. Mackey My question and maybe somebody with more construction knowledge but you say we don’t have anybody who can learn how to do this on the codes department. Can we teach somebody to do this teaching the codes guy instead of going out and hiring a contractor. Mr. Daily That’s a conversation with Gary, I don’t know what they have with their department. And thankfully they were able to go out and do the initial ones with me. Or else it would be me walking through folks homes trying to go that’s bad all right. Mr. Daily We need someone to write up a project spec to say we need to source this material in this way. Mr. Mackey> Is this something that someone in the codes department should have knowledge on homes and get them up to code to be able to do something. I don’t know what training is involved in this. Mr. Daily It doesn’t strike me exactly as a codes function which is curious why Jamie is saying that’s different code department. Mr. Beiter asked for a vote. The resolution was carried with seven yes roll call votes. The vote was 7 to 0. All were in favor. Mr. Yoder voted yes, Mr. Milliken voted yes, Mr. Mackey voted yes, Mrs. Katz voted yes, Ms. Miele voted yes, Mr. Pulizzi voted yes and Mr. Beiter voted yes. Resolution #10003  Resolution Authorizing Award of Professional Services to Hunt Engineers, Architects, Land Surveyors, & Landscape Architect LLC for Engineering Service to Construct Improvements to Newberry Park . The City Council read the resolution. Mr. Beiter asked for a motion and second. Mr. Mackey made the motion and it was seconded by Mr. Pulizzi. Ms. Fessler >> This may look familiar to you. We previously awarded services to Newberry to Bricks and they since dissolved and they were not able to fulfill their contract with the city. So we had to seek additional engineering services with this. And we proposed to work with Hunt. Chris previously working at brick is now working at Hunt. So we will have the opportunity to retain his knowledge of the project. And get the engineering finished this winter. So we can break ground on this park in the spring, which is very important. Some funds through HUD in this park project are set to expire in August of 2026. So it's very important we keep this project moving. Mr. Beiter asked for a vote. The resolution was carried with seven yes roll call votes. The vote was 7 to 0. All were in favor Mr. Yoder voted yes, Mr. Milliken voted yes, Mr. Mackey voted yes, Mrs. Katz voted yes, Ms. Miele voted yes, Mr. Pulizzi voted yes and Mr. Beiter voted yes. Resolution #10004 Resolution of City Council Approving a Minor Amendment to the Fiscal Year 2020 Action Plan . The City Council read the resolution. Mr. Beiter asked for a motion and second. Mr. Mackey made the motion and it was seconded by Mr. Pulizzi Ms. Livermore Sure, absolutely. Originally we allocated $398,000 to the fire department for the purchase of CDBG the self-contained breathing apparatus, however they have different funds they weren't able to spend because of timing and availability of equipment. So there is $9,471.71 left after their purchase their CDBG units that we are proposing that we put into the purchase of their rescue boat. Ms. Miele : Did the develops rescue boat go up? I thought we had fund for the res chi boat. Ms. Livermore We estimate the funds for the rescue boat to be around $100,000, this is a little bit above that. If there's money left over but we have to spend this money first so we have to spend this money first. Ms. Miele Basically we are moving 9,000 in and we are spending that 9,000 plus possibly 6 and moving another 9,000 back out. The resolution was carried with seven yes roll call votes. The vote was 7 to 0. All were in favor Mr. Yoder voted yes, Mr. Milliken voted yes, Mr. Mackey voted yes, Mrs. Katz voted yes, Ms. Miele voted yes, Mr. Pulizzi voted yes and Mr. Beiter voted yes. Resolution # 9996 Resolution to Accept the Fiscal Year 2024 – Audit Reports The City Clerk read the resolution. Mr. Beiter asked for a motion and second Mr. Pulizzi made the motion and it was seconded by Mr. Mackey. Ms. Livermore 've been waiting a long time for this but this is a resolution to accept the 2024 audit report. I do have Dustin from Maher Duessel on the line. And he has a PowerPoint on the screen for the presentation for the 2024 audit. Auditors Everyone able to see my screen okay and hear me okay?>> Thank you, appreciate the opportunity to report tonight, I have a PowerPoint that I'm going to keep things to a high level but please feel free to stop me at any point if you have additional questions. First off I'm with Maher Duessel CPA I worked a the audit principal and this is our first year working with the city in providing audits after services.The reporting package that is in currently in draft form but is ready to be finalized upon approval includes various documents and deliverables. The single audit includes the audited financial statements as well as additional reports over federal funding. Communication of those charged with governance letter. The DCED annual audit report filing A legal ad that's summarized from the DCED annual report. As well as the single audit data collection form that's required to be included along with a copy of the single audit to the federal clearinghouse. So to start things off, our required audit communications management responsibilities versus the auditor's responsibilities the books and records and information is the city's responsibility. We are engaged to prepare the financial statements. However, the financial statements including the footnote disclosures is derived from the information provided by management. Our responsibility as the independent auditor is then to provide audit opinions. I'll touch on each of these three opinions in a following slide. However, there's three reports that we issue a financial statement driven opinion, an opinion on government auditing standards. And then an opinion on uniform guidance over federal funding that was expanded over the year. Included within the financial statements include significant accounting policies. All of which adhere to a generally accepted accounting practices. Accounting estimates all financial statements have an eligible of estimates within them. The two largest estimates include the liability for pension and OPEBs and OPEB is other post benefits particularly related to insurances provided to retirees. Those liabilities are ache warily determined and are included in the financial statements based off of the information that's provided from management to the actuary and reviewed and audited by us.Sensitive disclosures found within the financial statements in note 1 includes an update to the repayment of FTA funds. This is a footnote that was also reported in the prior year and continues with some additional disclosure around that repayment agreement. I’m glad to report back we had no significant corrected misstatements and no significant audited a adjustments. Therefore the information being reviewed on a routine basis is factual and does agree in conjunction with the audited financial statements. Also glad to report back we had no disagreements or difficulties with management and performs our audit procedures upon the conclusion of the audit, we will obtain management representations, especially a letter that's given to us to note that anything that we inquired about the information that we received was all factual and nothing was withheld from us. We are not aware of other consultations with independent accountants and weed in a had no issues discussed upon us being retained as the independent auditors. So now the audit results we had an unmodified or clean audit opinion on the government funds and the business type activities and each major fund and aggregate remaining fund information. And an adverse opinion on the aggregately discrete component unit. This is consistent with the prior year results that adverse opinion is due to the fact that the Williamsport parking authority is not included in the financial reporting entity. However, under government auditing and government accounting standards, that entity should be included within the financial statements. That information is not readily available or up-to-date as audited information for the calendar year 2024, therefore there is an adverse opinion on such and related finding regarding that exclusion from the reporting uniform guidance results so this is then discussing the federal awards that were expended during the year. Or major program in making up the significant portion of the total of $5.4 million expended for the year was for the state in local fiscal recovery funds noted as ARPA funds. Audit reporting we had a clean opinion on compliance. However a finding over internal controls over to reporting and a similar finding from repeat of the prior year and internal controls over that reporting has continued to improve and did not affect our opinion on compliance. Therefore, we are stating the information itself cause not indicative of a misstatement or what it's being reported as required under the federal expenditures. However, improvements over internet controls to continue to improve that reporting process was noted. Reports structure, governmental financial statements are relatively complex there's an entity wide financial statement that was a long term approach and includes long-term assets and liabilities and you have fund financial statements found on page 3-12. That's what most or are used to understanding and seeing. As part of an overall day-to-day operational standpoint and includes more of a short term focus. Then you are required to have a note disclosures about both the entity wide end fund financial statements. Within the financial statements there's government funds in business type types the only business type funds the city currently reports is an internal service fund that then then provides services to the governmental funds. Moving to funds highlights and overall funds balance a lot of the graphs and information I will present the related directly to the funds financial statements. Across the board you have the funds that qualify as major funds and the aggregate non-major and overall positive increase in fund balance for the calendar year 24 ended in a positive 1.5 million. That's then made up across those categories. Focusing in on the general fund, general fund balance as of December 24 was a total of $12.5 million. And it's broken up manage these three categories. And unassigned fund balance where there's no restriction or earmark for that particular section of fund balance of $3.6 million. Committed $5.9 million for emergency reserve funds and 3 million assigned for future budget deficits. Having trouble with this slide. I'm having trouble with the slide. You can't see the legend, can you? >> No, we cannot. One second, I apologize, that's odd. I will go to a different view here. >> Jamie the quick the positive fund balance and the general fund the 1.51 what we projected in these 25 budgets? Ms. Livermore >> Yes, all these funds are used in the 24 budget and the 26 budget reflect every number they got. Auditor I apologize for that, the slide show view is messing up the legend so I'll use this view. Can everyone see that okay? >> Okay, moving on to the other governmental funds this is everything except for the general fund and total of 7.1 million and is earmark earmarked for these particular purposes restricted for home program of 1.1 million. And restricted for various grants that must be used in which those grants have restrictions for. Restricted for liquid fuels. Restricted for other purposes which is a very small percentage of a approximately $20,000. Then committed capital projects making up a large portion of 2.2 million as of December 24th. Moving on to have the revenue budget versus actual. You can see the large cat categories that make up the overall revenue budget with by far the largest portion being taxes. The dark blue being the budget. The light blue being the actual taxes came in over budget. License, permit, interests in rents also came in over budget. Intergovernmental revenue, slightly under budget. Then all other areas slightly over budget. There was an overall net positive, meaning revenues actual revenues exceeded the budget of approximately 600,000. Then moving onto the expense side, here, all categories had positive budget versus actual, meaning the actuals expenditures were less than the budgeted in the overall budget versus actual variance was 1.5 million, meaning 1.5 million less than budgeted for 2024. Moving on the financial governmental statements require a long-term look. In in the government financial statements you are required to report long-term assets including capital assets. Here's a summary of capital assets reported within the financial statements total depreciated and undepreciated items. Items not being depreciating including land and any construction in progress of approximately 2.6 million. Capital assets being depreciated including various categories. Net of depreciation of approximately 35 million for overall governmental activities, capital assets of approximately 38 million as of December 24. Additionally found in government wide financial statements is long term debt. The city has the following bonds and notes payable for an ending balance as of December 31, 2024 of approximately $15 million of bonds and debt, including notes payable. Ms. Miele That’s our full debt amount currently that we are holding.> Yes that would be the full debt amount. If you look at the current portion the 3.1 million is debt service of principle due in the following year meaning what was paid in 2025.Ms. Miele: I understood, I thought we were carrying total debt. 15 million is the total. Ms. Livermore These are the bonds that we have. Ms. Miele: Aside from the parking authority. Auditor Their portion is included in that. I believe so. Ms. Miele That includes all debt across all branches? Ms. Livermore Yes, all debt issuance, to bonds issuance in the name of the city. Ms. Miele Parking authority is in that holdout. Ms. Livermore This includes bonds and notes only. There's also payables and receives related to ongoing activity between those entities. So this just includes any long-term debt. Ms. Miele : Got it. Thank you. And these liabilities take a long-term approach to what the held in trust by the pension funds versus what the overall liability is expected to be. This graph shows how sensitive that could be if there's a 1% increase in the overall earnings of the trust funds or a 1% decrease from the trust funds. Auditors Think of it as the if the investments outperform what the actuaries are expecting that liability would significantly go down so that would be the items moving down towards the smaller amounts or on the right side. If the asset under perform by 1% that asset liability increase significantly. The liability of all three pension plans was approximately $9 million as of year-end 2024. One plan dipped into a one pen asset means the trust funds are in access of the expected liability and that results to an overall positive investment year if that increased by 1% this would turn to a asset liability. Sothis red line depicts the asset liability changes significantly from one year to the next depending how well the pension funds return from one year to the next Ms. Miele Can I follow up on that too?: You said 2024 in other words was a good year for our pensions. : And a good year if the stock market, consequently. Have you delved into 25 to look at that? I'm curious. Auditor We have not. This is actuary provided information and the town actuary (overlapping speakers). Ms. Miele : I know we were working off the 24 valuation now. Auditor They just requested the information in 2025. So we'll provide that to the actuary soon. Ms. Miele Got it. And good to know we were better off there for a second too. Auditor This liability is a long-term approach. If you think how things are being funded from one year to the next and the MMO the minimum municipal obligation paid into those funds are paid one year to next. So you continue to have the operating fund and make the payments as they become due. That liability plan will shrink depending on how well that pension plan is funded. Most funds are not 100% funded because this liability is a long-term approach. As you continue to fund that based off what your annual contributions are, you will be good from the end. The liability itself is typically something that isn't a mayor concern. The more of a concern is are you continuing to make your annual contributions in which the city has. Ms. Miele But we are not funding the OPEB so this graph doesn't reflect the other benefits. Auditor That's a great segue to the OPEB liability. This liability is significantly higher than the pension plan. The big difference here is what was said. There was no trust for the OPEB plan. The state requirement is that you must have a trust for the pension plan there's no statutory regulation for the OPEB plan. Across Pennsylvania the OPEB liability is significantly higher than pension plans because most municipalities don't have a trust for their OPEB plan. The fund as you go idea for OPEB plans is typically how things are funded. So as insurance premiums come due that's paid with any operating reserves that are there rather than having the trust make those payments.This is then depicting kind of the same idea. However, we looked at how well the investments perform with the OPEBs there is no trust so this is then looking at the health care cost trend rate. So with health care cost would go up 1%. The increase in liability would be about $11 million if costs would go down 1%, it would decrease by about $9 million. Ms. Miele Yeah, and I would like to thank Jamie and all of her crew. First year audit definitely have a lot of learning to do. And cross referencing each other with different what we call different things. And just to turn the audit around essentially in 3 months it had to take good cooperation from everyone in the city and our staff so I appreciate the city turning around to audit in a short period of time, especially for a first year for us. Auditor The question I have then is the 2025 audit. Obviously, we are closing out books on that. And we got other things coming in at that point in time.>> Yep, with the approval of this tonight, we will now be in compliance of our city audits our 2025 audit will be due in the fall. Dustin, I think we talked about starting that in June. Ms. Livermore >> Yeah. So the preparation for the audit is we started. So we are trying to close out all of the 2025 stuff. And still getting in the 2025 the end of the year stuff. And then it will be crunch time and we should be on time for our 2025 audit. Ms. Miele Just a question. So at this point, we are not that we are eager to go out for further debt or anything like that but the city is in a fiscally responsible position. Dustin in our opinion and you probably have no opinion on this. But is the city does the audit that you just provide provided coupled with a clean audit for 24 as well effectively make up for a handful of years where we have – Ms. Livermore A bond council or who is willing to back the debt at that point. I can't say that I know the answer to that question off the top of my head. But I do think that having strong financial positions in most case hopefully will outweigh prior year issues with filings. If you are able to issue debt and show you are able to pay that and have a plan of having everything continued to be filed, I think that would be a very positive outlook in order to possibly issue in the near future. Ms. Miele It would seem to me that would be an indication we continue to pay our debt even while we had our books in disarray. So you consider us to be in a strong financial position comparable to other communities in the commonwealth? Auditor Yes. The OPEB liability and pension liability definitely skews things. If you focus in on your fund financial statements that's where you know a lot more strength. And that's consistent among most municipalities. As you continue to grow fund balances well too as I mentioned it was a positive $1.5 million roughly of an increase in fund balance. There was an increase in 2023. Don't know exactly where things were at in 2024 since we haven't started that process. But if you have consistent growth, that will definitely help as well too, to prove that you are able to take on debt and make those debt service payments. Ms. Miele : And it does not hurt our financial position the fact that we used several million dollars worth of American res crew plan funding to balance our budget in 24?: I guess what I am going to say to you is that 25 may look thinner because that balance isn't happening. Auditor Jamie, maybe you can talk more with specifics but I believe revenue loss for 2024 was significant less than what was in the past. Where expend sures that were left -- sorry, the funds left and spent were earmarked for expenditures. Not all of which necessarily are reoccurring expenditures. Yes, there's definitely things that were spent that will improve equipment and such but once that equipment is purchased there might not be as much need to incur those expenditures in the future. Kind of where you get into that situation is where all of the American rescue funds were for ref knew loss and in that case, the municipalities are in a harder standpoint in which all of those funds have dried up. Essentially, 100% used towards balancing your budget and not necessarily having earmarked expenditures that will eventually fall off once those funds are spent. Council I just want to say thank you for all your hard work and thank you to Dustin and to Jamie and your team. That is a lot of leg work and this is great. We got a completed audit. Nice work. The resolution was carried with seven yes roll call votes. The vote was 7 to 0. All were in favor Mr. Yoder voted yes, Mr. Milliken voted yes, Mr. Mackey voted yes, Mrs. Katz voted yes, Ms. Miele voted yes, Mr. Pulizzi voted yes and Mr. Beiter voted yes. Ordinance of the City of Williamsport Placing a Government Study Commission Question on the 2026 Primary Election Ballot & Designating the Number of Members to Serve on Said Commission(final reading) The City Clerk read the ordinance Mr. Beiter asked for a motion and second. Mr. Yoder made the motion and it was seconded by Mr. Milliken Ms. Miele have no questions but I would like to thank Adam Yoder for presenting it to me last time. Mr. Yoder No problem. The ordinance was carried with seven yes roll call votes. The vote was 7 to 0. All were in favor Mr. Yoder voted yes, Mr. Milliken voted yes, Mr. Mackey voted yes, Mrs. Katz voted yes, Ms. Miele voted yes, Mr. Pulizzi voted yes and Mr. Beiter voted yes. Ordinance Repealing & Reenacting the Section 111.02 (n) of the Codified Ordinances(first reading) The City Clerk read the ordinance Mr. Beiter asked for a motion and second Mr. Yoder made the motion and it was seconded by Mr. Milliken Mr. Beiter My name is listed here so I guess I will be taking the marred majority of this one but then I'll turn it over to the solicitor. This was the point brought up at the beginning of last year, councilman Mackey felt strongly about it and we stewed over it a while and we felt we would take the committee structure and change it up a little bit. And rather eliminating the committees because that would do a number of on the Ordinances of the books already we decided to add what we would be calling the committee of the whole. This will allow us as a body of council to meet and discuss things at committee like we would, rather than the Finance Committee, public safety, Public Works. If you went through the Ordinance itself, we have economic revitalization, we have housing needs. Mr. Grimes, We have what was the other one? Committee of transportation oversight. There's quite a bit of committees out there. So this will allow us to meet whether one or all of us at once or the three of us. And have a discussion as we normally would at a committee meeting now it's up to us in the meantime between now and two weeks from now to have the discussion when will the appropriate time is going to be. This will make it much more efficient as well when it comes to getting members of council together who have expertise on the items on the agendas on the committee meeting as well as getting the members of the administration together so they can spend their time efficiently and not attend three or four committee meetings to hear something and then have to follow up with something else because they weren't there.>> Not really, meetings are a function of the City Council. So you have control over how committees operate. And you have chosen in your Ordinance to lay ow out how those committees work. Adding this as a committee of the whole in addition to other committees means you don't have to change all kinds of other pieces of your Ordinance but it also allows you to operate as you are right now to decide and work through how the committee works because it's administrative. So you get to decide how those function. But we kept the same quorum requirements for the committee of the whole but otherwise it gives you more flexibility which is not unusual. There's other municipalities, some the size of Williamsport that that use a similar method like this for your committees. Ms. Miele I missed a lot of the discussion on this so excuse me if I am retreading things so I'm understanding the proposal is we will have a biweekly meeting of the whole meeting briar to the council meet meting to vet agenda items.> And committee meetings will meet as necessary as related to public safety needs in. In the way that many of our committees have met because some do heavy lifting and some not at all. Is this a proposal for a in-person meeting? The reason I mention that is because there's been some sort of -- issues with us voting in a non-in-person meeting like a Zoom meeting. Mr. Beiter : The way we handled that in our committee meetings prior to this was simply not recommending anything for a vote. In that committee meeting. Ms. Miele : So the proposal is effectively the say. We will have a single committee meeting probably on a Tuesday and it will be a Zoom meeting. And it will be a whoever shows up shows in sort of affair? Mr. Beiter What the goal is what we need to discuss among ourselves is assigning certain members of council for a two- or three-month stretch making sure if they can't be there to find an alternate within the group. However if it's a time that's advantageous for everybody and we all happen to be there, we all happen to be there. Ms. Miele > Well, I understand the idea of not doing away with all of the other committees. But as I see it, while those will still be included in the Ordinance this committee as the whole is taking their place.>> So we are only meeting in committee for the most important things. That need that time. Right? So that could be a public safety issue. It could be a finance issue. It could be a Public Works issue. But instead of assigning it to one of these specific committees we are just going to all meet in this committee on a whole to discuss the issue. Right? Mr. Grimes That is correct. And should we run into an issue that we have to spend a little bit more time on and dedicate to something else, we can always use those other committees for those reasons. If anybody has to do the extra leg work and we decide that we want to butch it to that committee and they want to present it to the committee as a whole, they can do that. It seems more than what we need to do but we have that option if we would like.>> Again, the entire reason I brought this up is because it feels like on any given two week agenda there's maybe one or two things at best that may need a little bit more clarity for our purposes here at the whole entire City Council meeting. So the idea that we wouldn't be able to get through that type of thing at the committee of the whole, it kind of seems to defeat the purpose if we are going to have the committee of the whole but still put things down to the public safety or the finance.> Again, I see no reason why we would need to do that. Maybe when we get to the home rule discussion we might need to use those committees because they might have questions and it might be more advantageous to do it that way. But I think eliminating them in that way would cause more issues in the short term as we work our way through the new committee structure. > And to Councilwoman Miele's point, I don't know if we need to have the term vote in the meeting discussion. Because if we meet and no vote it's just a discussion so I don't know if that language needs to be changed or modified. My suggestion is because this is a administrative function is to allow it no the most Broadway. And certainly we can change it however you like. But if you leave the other committees and leave the language you could have all the committees meet and have a vote if they want to. But they could meet virtually and doesn't vote and none of the other committees meet. It leaves you the flexibility how to decide administrative how you want to handle it. If it's a work session meeting on Zoom without a vote that's still allowed under the Ordinances and the Ordinances don't require something to go to public safety or finance. Just says that the committee have to hear something related to their committee and the committee as a whole can discuss anything they like. So you could send all of your items to the committee as a whole. But the way that that drafted now gives you the most flexibility. But if the intention is we don't want the other committees operating at all and we don't want a vote we can certainly make those changes but it still allows you to do that with how it's written out. Mr. Mackey If I can jump in here. Some additional -- the way I interpret this and it's good when you think about what our solicitor said about flexibility. I think historically, we go back if you go back and do some research on when these committees were formed way back in the day. You probably saw a lot different of a approach that prior councils have taken, right? You probably saw a lot more like diving into individual projects initiative that were maybe council driven that happened at that level. We haven't done that. Because Frankly there's been a pile of stuff that's just -- I don't know that we had the ability or time with everything going on in the past 6 years. But I think looking forward I think it's good to keep those because if you think about the stamp program that's ongoing that we have to go through the next couple of years. If you think of diving into quarterly reviews of our spending and budget these are good examples of projects and specific oversight of the Finance Committee. Mr. Yoder he county pull back their LERTA, for example a couple days ago and that will impact our LERTA. When you think of the economic development response or aspect of that that's a really good thing to focus on for that committee. If in the membership of those it's set up so it has the appropriate people that need to do that. I think from a project initiative perspective, we have the ability I think that Mr. Grimes is saying the flexibility to do that pretty quickly. Rather than going through the process of, you know, establishing an ad hoc committee and all that stuff. I know this is a lot of in the weeds minutia but I think the set up makes perfect sense. And I think it's good. Ms. Miele E: I agree with you, is there, Adam. I would however encourage us. I know conventionally unless you are planning to break with that convention, the President of the council doesn't serve on any subcommittees the committee of the whole. The point of that being since we have a change in presidency, we should reappoint members of those individual committees ASAP. Because I do feel we should allocate home rule to the revitalization committee or the Finance Committee and that's something we need to move on relatively quickly. So I would say that should be carried forward by an individual committee. Which one -- yeah. Ms. Miele : I'm happy to if you want. And I was already the chair of the Finance Committee, so I can continue in that role or run ERC, I don't really care. But that's something I think rises to the level of a committee should be meeting about that on a biweekly or monthly basis for a little bit here. Until we perhaps have a home rule commission that takes over that rule. I don't have any other things I think that need to immediately get sent to some committee for multiple discussions but that seems like an important one. Mr. Beiter I would agree with you. And I wanted to put this in place first when we figure out that structure and over the next two weeks get input from everyone. And make sure this is the best use of our time. Mr. Yoder I think this is grout. I will openly say I think over the summer is when I'll happily raise my hand to actively be taking a spot on the committee as a whole by biweekly vetting of things for sure with my work schedule. And I'm happy to fill in where I'm needed as well. The ordinance was carried with seven yes roll call votes. The vote was 7 to 0. All were in favor Mr. Yoder voted yes, Mr. Milliken voted yes, Mr. Mackey voted yes, Mrs. Katz voted yes, Ms. Miele voted yes, Mr. Pulizzi voted yes and Mr. Beiter voted yes.  Ordinance – Transfer Ordinance #7 2024 Budgret The City Clerk read the ordinance Mr. Beiter asked for a motion and second Mr. Yoder made the motion and it was seconded by Mr. Mackey. Ms. Livermore You should be used to seeing this transfer Ordinance. Every after audit we go through and clean everything up so this is what everything is an Ordinance cleaning everything up and moving the budget here and there to make sure that everything is all in compliance. Mr. Beiter Any questions related to this item? Seeing and hearing none. The ordinance was carried with seven yes roll call votes. The vote was 7 to 0. All were in favor Mr. Yoder voted yes, Mr. Milliken voted yes, Mr. Mackey voted yes, Mrs. Katz voted yes, Ms. Miele voted yes, Mr. Pulizzi voted yes and Mr. Beiter voted yes. Resolution #9997 Resolution Authorizing the Purchase of 1 2026 Ford F- Super Cab & 2025 Ford F – 350 Box Truck The City Clerk read the resolution. Mr. Beiter asked for a motion and second Mr. Yoder made the motion and it was seconded by Mr. Mackey Mr. Livermore> You have a resolution to authorize and purchase one 2026F350 and one 2025F350. These trucks will be purchased through Stuckey Ford in the amount of $121,000. The funding source the parks capital projects. These two trucks will be replacing two 2011 GMC 2500s. Any questions? Ms. Miele : Just do we think that the vehicles that are being replaced have any value? I assume they will go out in one way or the other but will they? The resolution was carried with seven yes roll call votes. The vote was 7 to 0. All were in favor Mr. Yoder voted yes, Mr. Milliken voted yes, Mr. Mackey voted yes, Mrs. Katz voted yes, Ms. Miele voted yes, Mr. Pulizzi voted yes and Mr. Beiter voted yes Resolution #9998 Resolution Authorizing an Agreement between Williamsport Bureau of Fire & ESO The City Clerk read the resolution. Mr. Beiter asked for a motion and second Mr. Yoder made the motion and it was seconded by Mr. Mackey Chief Harer I bring this resolution forward to you tonight. This this is brought was previously brought to you last year when we purchased it but not bought as annual subscription and we are looking to do annual subscription not to exceed 14,332. This is the recording software we use for our fire incidents as well as the EMS incidents and we are required to record those incidence for the state to be able be able to go for grants and such. So that's why we need to do this. Mr. Beiter Any questions from members of council regarding this item? Ms. Miele : Where is the funding coming from again? Chief This is out of our budget. Ms. Miele And was budgeted in like you are not reallocating anything from your budget? Chief >> Correct, this was here last year and this company purchased the previous company we were using but when the resolution was done last year it was not done as a annual subscription so we had to bring it back too and do it again. So it's under the same budget line number. Mr. Beiter The question I have, Chief s in relation to South Williamsport now and having our firemen over there this software is helping to record that data. Chief correct. With this here, we are still working with a company and I'm still learning so we can generate the reports and identify each unit and when we hire over time and when we are normally staffed to provide that service over there. Or whether we do it under the normal rules of man power. Mr. Beiter Wonderful. It would be great to see how this recording software works when we get our first report from you. Ms. Miele And it will let us get the actual cost versus OT and regular hours (overlapping speakers). Chief > We can show when we hire overtime or when we have enough staff on that day to do without. The resolution was carried with seven yes roll call votes. The vote was 7 to 0. All were in favor Mr. Yoder voted yes, Mr. Milliken voted yes, Mr. Mackey voted yes, Mrs. Katz voted yes, Ms. Miele voted yes, Mr. Pulizzi voted yes and Mr. Beiter voted yes Resolution #10004 Resolution Uncollected Real Estate Taxes for 2025 The City Clerk read the resolution. Mr. Beiter asked for a motion and second Mr. Yoder made the motion and it was seconded by Mr. Mackey Mr. Welteroth >> Good evening, President Beiter and fellow council. Before you tonight is a resolution for uncollected tax debt here. In the amount of $1,213,418.68. It is of my opinion the treasurer's office this year did its due diligence in trying to collect these taxes. We were able to collect $14,567,151.72. The resolution further is asking that the uncollected debt go to the county's assessments office for further collection efforts. One thing I would like to -- some things I would like to acknowledge is I was looking at some sheets and that's about 90% of the debt that we are supposed to collect we were able to collect this year. It's about a 2% difference from last year. Given the county the fact that the current role that I'm in was vacate back in October. I would like to acknowledge Wendy Williams and Katie Shoemaker two individual at work in the treasurer's office that selflessly stepped up to fill that vacancy. If it wasn't for their efforts I believe the amount collected would be much lower, as well as other processes in the office of other taxes and operations. Mr. Beiter Well said. Are there questions from members of council? Seeing and hearing none. Mrs. Katz Yes. And Mr. Welteroth, thank you, that was really nice and some people don't get acknowledged and it's nice to know how much work went into this. My vote is still yes. The resolution was carried with seven yes roll call votes. The vote was 7 to 0. All were in favor Mr. Yoder voted yes, Mr. Milliken voted yes, Mr. Mackey voted yes, Mrs. Katz voted yes, Ms. Miele voted yes, Mr. Pulizzi voted yes and Mr. Beiter voted yes  Resolution #10000 Resolution Exonerating the City Treasurer from Collection of 2025 Real Estate Taxes The City Clerk read the resolution. Mr. Beiter asked for a motion and second Mr. Yoder made the motion and it was seconded by Mr. Mackey Mr. Welteroth This motion exonerates me it's very detailed, exonerates me of having the responsibility to collect the rest of the outstanding debt. The Lycoming County assessments office would take over that responsibility. And my focus of new charge would be collecting the new taxes for 2026. Species sounding pretty standard the past two we do them every year. Any questions regarding this item? Seeing and hearing none . The resolution was carried with seven yes roll call votes. The vote was 7 to 0. All were in favor Mr. Yoder voted yes, Mr. Milliken voted yes, Mr. Mackey voted yes, Mrs. Katz voted yes, Ms. Miele voted yes, Mr. Pulizzi voted yes and Mr. Beiter voted yes Certificate of Appropriate – HARB Mr. Beiter : Any questions regarding the certificate of appropriateness here? Seeing and hearing none. The Certificate of Appropriatess was carried with seven yes roll call votes. The vote was 7 to 0. All were in favor Mr. Yoder voted yes, Mr. Milliken voted yes, Mr. Mackey voted yes, Mrs. Katz voted yes, Ms. Miele voted yes, Mr. Pulizzi voted yes and Mr. Beiter voted yes Mr. Beiter: The announcement I have is we will have having a executive session tonight to discuss legal matters after our council meeting. Any comments from the administration Adjournment Meeting adjourned upon motion by Mr. Yoder and a seconded by Mr. Pulizzi Meeting adjourned at 8:15 PM with unanimous ayes. Submitted by: Janice M. Frank City Clerk