City Council

Thursday, March 5, 2026 7:00 PM Williamsport, PA Council President Eric Beiter brought the Williamsport City Council meeting to order on Thursday, March 5, 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, Mr. Willia Vincent Pulizzi, Vice President Valerie Fessler Liz Miele, Councilwoman Tracey Harer, , Fire Chief, Adam W Jonah Milliken, Councilman, Justin Ottaviano, , Police Chief, Adam Yoder, Councilman Solicitor Justin Houser Jon Mackey, Councilman, Janice Frank, City Clerk Bonnie Katz, Councilwoman Jamie Livermore Absent: Scott Livermore, S&P Kris Black Adam Welt3rroth, Treasurer absent Bill Scott Members of the public Approval of the Williamsport City Council minutes of 02/05/26 approved upon a motion by Mr. Pulizzi and second from Mr. Milliken. All were in favor with a vote of 5 to 0. Presentation from SEDA-COG for Work on the Levee Mr. Joseph Pawlak Hello, everybody, very nice to be here tonight. Buckle up it will be an hour and a half presentation. So just joking. Really quickly, first of all, thank you so much for your interest in. me and partnership in this very critical project for the Mr. Joe Pawlak city. Also thank you to my colleague, Jamie who is your CBDG coordinator for suggesting our services with community Mr. Gary Knarr revitalization at SEDA-COG. To give you background and I'm sure you are Mr. Tom Cillofamiliar pretty familiar already. C. Dean Dave Young, Police Chief SEDA-COG serves 11 counties in the central region. SEDA-COG serves as more of less of a extension of county Chief He Sol. J. David Smith government. And folks like Jamie and myself -- she's with community development Janice Frank, City Clerk,and absentI'm can with community revitalization we are your extension of city government. That's our role. WhereFire Todd Heckman, can we, help our municipalities? So we Chief serve 294 municipalities in central Pennsylvania. With that, the projectNewsthat Mediawe are talking about tonight is the Williamsport levee improvement project. this is a total of 10.7 plus million dollars to keep your levee that is approved through the army corps of engineers. First of all why is that important? Well it's your levee. And also if that's not approved by the army corps of engineers your residents lose the protection and thus their flood insurance will go higher. So it's very important not just for the levee and for the obvious. But also to protect your residents and keep their Members of News Media bills less. So it's a very important project. So I am delighted to be here tonight. Members Because of the news media we just started this project in December. There was an issue with PIMA this is not anything to do with the city but this project was awarded in fiscal year 23. And the city did not actually get their signed contract from PIMA until I believe it was November. November of 2025. It is not just here. We are also working on a couple other FEMA fiscal year 23. This was called a legislative pre- disaster mitigation or an LPDM. And so once again it's not an issue. The city did nothing wrong. But our very first job that we did when value are you contacted us about this was to get you an extension. So we have heard this was originally supposed to be completed by this year the fall of this year which there's no way you could put together a 24- month project in less than a year. I mean, we are working fast but we could not work that fast. As I said, we have tentatively heard that you are approved for until April of 2028. So the timeline now works. We went into professional service agreement with the city in December. And I am more than thrilled to share I have only good news to share with you tonight. In front of you I did provide you -- and I also provided it in your packet earlier just a project overview also what's happened since we signed on with the city. First of all, the project overview you see what this is a $10.75 million project. With that you have an $8 million FEMA award that's covering the bulk share of your grant. We are also working with the city and we put in for a 25% advance on that $8 million. So we asked for $2 million which we already submitted to hopefully that will get to you within the next month. So then also in December, we started the project itself. We had a kick off meeting we started biweekly meetings every other week. We started right away with it's called an EHP through FEMA that's your environmental and historic preservation. It's like your environmental review. But PIMA handles that but that looks like it's also taken care of and also your notice to proceed. With we actually don't have these documents yet but we are waiting for them but it looks like they are already taken care of. And then in January, the key milestones there where we continue with our biweekly meetings and then we had to look at how do we actually get engineers on board to do this work. So there's different competitive procurement ways to go about things. For part of it we did go after it's called a request for qualification and that's more of your heavy duty where we need your design work. And we put together that working with Bill Scott your engineer. And then we had a request for proposal that was for work that was already engineered but we needed oversight on the construction. We put those out on I believe January 16th. They went out for competitive procurement. In February the -- the due date for that was February 18th. And we got three statements of qualifications for the RFQ. The request for qualifications and we received two proposals for your request for proposals which met the minimum needed to proceed. So that's the exciting part of that. Then we had scoring. So there was three individuals at SEDA-COG that scored the proposals and a statements of qualifications. And then also your city. We all unanimously picked the same which was also shocking I don't know if I had where -- everybody -- not the exact same score but everybody ranked the same exact. So that was very exciting. So tonight, Bill Scott did put together resolutions that you will then be approving our recommendations on the engineers that we would recommend that you hire for this work. So for the statement of qualifications, that was AE Com the request for proposal proposals that was the engineer that was provide oversight that's GPI. For the oversight on the construction. Moving on we asked for a 25% advance on the $8 million. And the project remains fully compliant. And within your budget parameters we are at your timeline. So I truly only have really good things to share. Also on behalf of the project and of the city each month I provide a monthly report to your commissioners to the legislators both your federal and your state legislators and also the city is copied on that. Also if you would like to be included in that monthly report, by all means reach out to me, happy to provide that as well. I'll CC you all on that, happy to do that. With that, I'll ask if you have any questions for me? Mrs. Katz: Eric, I do, it's Bonnie. Mrs. Katz : We have been working on this levee for 12 to 14 years. We still really haven't broken ground. And I'm listening to you talk about what all has to be put into play here. This has to be done. That has to be done. Why wasn't this done ahead of time that you could start doing -- start the project (overlapping speakers). Representative, Sure, Bonnie, that's a very good question. The reason is you are not allowed to start the project until you have the signed grant agreement. And that's what I specified early on. Even though with this was awarded by FEMA through PEMA fiscal year 23. The city did not receive the signed contract from PEMA until November of 2025. And they were told -- which is the truth -- if they would have spent my money prior to that, it would not be allowed to be reimbursed. So they were following the guidance of PEMA. Which was a very smart move. They were not allowed to. So we actually had our professional service agreement. We had everything waiting for the approval to come from PEMA to start. They couldn't. Does that answer your question, Bonnie? Mrs. Katz : It duds but to a certain extent you mean to say some of the paperwork that you don't have to file, could that not have been started -- To have at least engineers in place. Nope. Yes, we would not be able to go out and competitively procure any engineers and go into contract with anybody until we had a signed contract by PEEMA : It puts us in a bind. 20,258,000,000. Representative Without a doubt, Bonnie, that's why we got you an extension until April 2028. What I am sharing with you this is not a fault of the city and they did nothing wrong this isn't even city specific this happened with other projects that we were working on with FEMA. The city did exactly what they were instructed they were not allowed to spend money on this project until they had a signed contract from PEMA. Now they had a contract that looked official but it was not signed until November. And that's across the board. This is not just the City of Williamsport. Yeah, Williamsport Mrs. Katz : It's a big disappointment t like I said. Representative 1,000% agreed. Yeah, agreed it's not just you. Honestly it's more of a FEMA issue than a PEMA issue uh but I agree with you. Mrs. Katz : Okay and you are going to work on all of this to get this done as soon as possible. Representative > Yep. It is a 24-month project and we have it budgeted out every month of those 24 months it's estimated to finish in April of 2028. Any other questions? Ms. Miele : I think part of Bonnie's point is both she and I it was either by first or second year on council and this will be my 17th and we are still discussing the levee. And the $8 million grant didn't come until later and Bonn I think that's part of the lag we didn't have any money to do anything with the levee without we received that funding. My question is over the last 15 or 16 years we heard about 15 different projects that need to be undertaken of part of the levee work. How much of what needs to happen with the levee will be completed with this $10.7 million extension? Mr. Bill Scott (off microphone) coming up with this this is part of the resolution I have later in the agenda. The relief wells. The Dewey avenue i-wall. And north cross plates and two pump stations and the Cohler Ms. Miele : How many pump stations have we done at this point? Mr. Scott None I'm aware. And we are doing upgrades for three of those. And so that's that project. Then we'll (overlapping speakers) -- we are replacing roofs at 9 pump stations that will be coming up next as well maybe next meeting I'll bring something to you Ms. Miele: That's part of this 10 million. Mr. Scott That's part of the earmark, yes Ms. Miele: The reason I'm asking we got quotes anywhere from $2 to $3 million up to 15 years years ago and at one point up to 25. So what remains to be done when we complete this work that we believe we can do with this funding. Mr. Bill Scott The roof I was looking at that today the pump station the roofs are $2.1 million for that. And I don't have the estimate for reliefs wells and that's multi-millions obviously. I can get that to you. The total budget is 10 plus-million. We'll use every dime of it. Ms. Miele: But we think that we'll be done with the work that FEMA and the army corps of engineers is requiring us to do? Mr. Scott This is what it is but the city could not move faster from where they were by the time they received this signed grant from PEMA they could not move any faster. Mr. Yoder Liz, can I piggyback on your question. And Bill, I don't know if you have the answer but I think this is what Liz is trying to get in the aggregate of the work that City of Williamsport needs to do to get the levee recertified what percentage of the work is covered under this $10.7 million? 10% in 30%? Do you have an idea? Mr. Scott I don't want to speak tonight I don't want t to give you a number that we don't know but it's significant? Ms. Miele : So better than 50? These are major ticket items. Mr. Yoder: I think from the public's perspective if they are watching this like man what are they even talking about? At the end of the day whatever the percentage is. Mr. Yoder The fact that we are making progress here after significant bureaucratic errors and issues in the federal government that were going on before most of us were on council. Ms. Miele: Thanks for pointing that out, Adam. Mr. Yoder: No to a cup of you the credit for catching this this and sticking to this point it wouldn't be here without you. That's the reflection of the bureaucracy of the federal government. Not anybody that's been here longer than me. Right? I think for the public, though, that quantification would be very valuable. And super basic. And I think a good exercise for us to understand really what this is going to end up tackling so we can start communities that out. Thank you, Bill, I appreciate your effort Mr. Scott I will say again these are major high priority things we are going after. Mr. Yoder: Very much so. These aren't the little thing it's bio bottom. These are the major things Ms. Miele: We are delighted to see any ground breaking happen because it came to feel for a while like all we were going to do was one study after another. And we spent millions of city money doing study after study with nothing changing in terms of the status of the levee. None of that is to say we are not excited to see this coming to pass. But what I am curious about is for a long time, and I think still it seemed the goal posts were continually moving because the climate change is driving more intense storms. Where the regulations set up by FEMA and the army corps of engineers were changing and we were having a hard time of getting a sense where we stood and what needed to happen and if it was possible for us to get a sense of where we need to stand and what will happen once this funding is expended. It would be good to take a moment and to have a understanding of what we are going to accomplish and how much further we will have to go from there. Obviously we received a large chunk of money from the federal government to get where we are going to get. And we may need to begin seeking more funding so I think it's important to keep our eye on that long-term goal too. Thanks. Repetitive I do want to stress the city did nothing wrong. And once they actually had the grant signed they are working at lightning yet legal speed. So I can't stress that enough. I don't know if I ever seen a project get off the ground quicker than this one. I mean, we are running procurements at the same time. Which you are allowed to. But it was a lot. So I'm just sharing with you that your city is working at lightning yet legal speed. And whatever I can do to keep your all informed as I said I am letting your commissioners know and your legislators. If you want me to add council, happy to do that and (off microphone) Ms. Miele: I think we would like to be -- Representative I'm sending out a report tomorrow. And Mayor, I'm included you on that could would you mind sharing with me their emails. Thank you for your time Mrs. Katz: I do have to tell you one more thing,. I feel between Liz and I I know I feel where they are in the Peanuts cartoon and when you go to kick they pull the football out. Do you know how many times they say you are going to break ground and you go there and nothing happens. Representative I can't control that I signed on in December. So I have no idea what happened in the past. But I apologize for whatever happened. And I'm not going to apologize on behalf of FEMA. They are big boys. And girls. But I do -- I just want to stress the city had done an incredible job since I joined. So all right, well thank you so much for your time. Thank you, Bonnie. Mrs. Katz : Thank you, thank you for being so. Ms. Miele: Bonnie, you muted yourself. (Laughter). I think what we can say is thanks to you and I am assuming many people in the administration are driving this but Marley Bill Scott. Representative Your entire staff is incredible. Thank you again. We look forward to more updates. Absolutely, thank you. Mr. Beiter: Item 5, limited courtesy of the floor. We have had no requests this evening. I do apologize to guests that we have in the audience tonight we have a large agenda with a lot of guests so we are going to try to move through in in order except for one item but the first one we will jump is item number 24 Limited Courtesy of the Floor There was none. Resolution #10011 Resolution Closing Out Community Conservation Partnership Grant Project ERC-TAG -28-187 The City Clerk read the resolution. Mr. Beiter asked for a motion and a second Mr. Pulizzi made the motion and it was seconded by Mr. Milliken. Ms. Fessler Yes, good evening member of council. Scott Williams is unfortunately under there we are the flu tonight so I'm covering a few of his items so please bear with me as I do that. With this item I actually want to start by thanking DCNR. This project the comprehensive recreation parks and open space plan was primarily funded by DCNR there was a 50% match by the city but there was a $70,000 investment by DCNR this is one of the current DCNR projects that we have that is fund by them and we appreciate all they do to help us get work done in the city. This project was started Mayor Slaughter can I bed this off before I worked for the city either Scott or I and worked with the city, Keith and Rob Cooley led the charge on them so I was going to thank them. And I thought they were going to attend. So there she is. So we want to thank Phi for her work on this and she was instrumental to get the public input to get this plan under way. Our department as we mentioned multiple times is focusing this year on a lot of different planning studies the housing study. The safe streets for all study. This is one piece of the planning efforts that we are putting together. And our real goal is to have a proactive targeted investment in this City of Williamsport rather than being reactive to grant opportunities that are available. So this will lay the groundwork for us to start doing that with our parks and open spaces. So we have the consultant team with us here tonight it's Joanne Shelly from evolve and Rog arm strong who was contracted by evolve and tonight they will focus their presentation on two things, which is are one, where did the recommendations for this plan come from? Who did we talk to? How did we gather this information? And two what are the recommendations? I think one of the best things that Scott Williams brought to this plan was when he came in on the end was making sure to work we with eevolve and to work with Scott Williams and Mayor r to work with a plan that was implementable. Not that we need to do six more studies because we want to do work for the City of Williamsport. And not a plan staid to put a dog park in the town square. So we wanted something that made sense for the city residents and amenable with the streets and department. So were in alignment with Mayor Slaughter vision's for the city. So I'll turn it over to Joanne and look forward to your input. Repetitive Joanne Shell, Great. It allows me video. It's not allowing me to share my screen from this access point. Do off copy of the presentation? That's okay if you want to go ahead and get started with that, we would appreciate it. Sure, my name is Joanne shell I'm a architect landscape manager from Evolve and my colleague Rob arm strong is unfortunately is not able to buts tonight was our certified parks and recreation professionals as well as a Ph.D. in history. So he also spent time looking at the history of the parks. They informed how we made recommendations especially in the light of the fact that you have historic parks. I want to take time to echo Valerie and thank Fi for her efforts we had a large steering committee and it was a little bit unruly and Feef and rob Cooley kept the project on track. And I came in to the project mid project. And she carried it to the end. So we owe her a debt of gratitude For the audience the Rec parks and Recitational open space and plan is a guide for your future. As valley said. We use the guiding Aprils from DCNR outdoor recreation plan. The national recreation plan association pillars of health, equity, and conservation and sustainability. And we worked with the steering committee to develop parks and recreations specific vision, mission, and goals. And the vision that they identified was that Williamsport parks improve the quality of life for all our residents and visitors. And Williamsport parks create a sense of pride in our community and welcome visitors. And their mission statement was to provide high quality, safe, and ready to use recreational cultural and educational opportunities for all our diverse residents and visitors. The goals that were focused on were connectivity, a 10-minute walk to a high-quality park. Accessibility for people of all ages and abilities. And have the parks be inclusive and equitable. Sustainability. Adaptability. Developing park many in a manager that's fiscally responsible. Celebrating community. And improves coordination and relationships with city partners. The planning process was developed in four phases. The first phase was listening and learning. Then ideating and testing. Refining and prioritizing. And launching into action. There's a timeline on the screen. But so in the first phase, we talked about listening and learning. And who did we talk to? We had five meetings with the study committee to verify that we were on target with our analysis and then our recommendations. We did staff interviews from October through June of 2024. October of 2023 through June of 2024. We held stakeholder and focus group interviews from May through June of 2024. We facilitated a community survey and also again mentioned that Feef was able to facilitate input from the local school students in two different formats. K through 12. And we had exceptional amount of feedback from the students that responded. And really helped us verify what we had heard from the community in general but we thought this was an important age target group. And appreciate the additional input. We incorporated Facebook comments that were received after we published the community survey results. We held an open house event on October of 2024. One during the day is one in the evening and we held an additional open house event to verify recommendations in March of 2025. What we heard was that Williamsport residents have access to great natural spaces. Brand and park is a favorite but it needs improvements. Williamsport has prioritized some neighborhoods over others. Parks are not equally maintained. And amenities are not equally distributed. Park connectivity and signage needs to improve. Residents requested more programming. More activities for younger people. And for seeing yours. When programs are implemented they need to be better promoted. And communication about the city's parks facilities, programming should exist online. During the ideating and testing, which is the systems analysis, we took our analysis and looked at the stewardship of the parks cleanliness and maintenance. And sustainability we looked at impervious korve and canopy cover. And programming. What type of multiuse spaces. And what their flexibility was. Amenities what variety there was and what condition they were in. whether the parks were visibly welcoming, whether there was signage. And whether there was comfortable to be in the parks. Whether it was safe or feeling of perceived safety. We looked at connectivity from the standpoint of walking, biking and ADA access. And then again safety with regards to visibility and lighting. We came away with analysis of with regards to the park facilities and aamenities that Williamsport in comparison to its peer communities has a low ratio of park area per residents. There is within the neighborhood an even distribution of playgrounds however some playgrounds are in poor condition and again maintenance is uneven. We found that the staff itself lacks park-specific training to maintain facilities and amenities. And some of the skills are lacking the city needs more recreational opportunities for older children and senior and and the play equipment needs to allow for universal design standards to ado allow for independent play for those persons with disabilities. With regards to connectivity and communication we found that 82% of your residents live within a 10-minute balk walk of the park which is a high level of connectivity. However the park type do not match the demographic distributions for ages and target users. The walk-bike infrastructures to the park is fragmented. Many streets lack crosswalks which creates safety concerns. And the city needs better communication. To the residents about the programming. And an option from residents about their needs and concerns. Our recommendations were divided in the third phase of refining and prioritizing into three categories. Operations and And administration. System wide infrastructure. And individual factor facilities. I will give you an overview of the operations and administration and system wide infrastructure. The system -- the individual park facilities would be better reviewed within the context of the plan itself. With regards to operations administration. Communication -- the communication needs a strategy. It needs to be multigenerational friendly. And there needs to be better coordination with partner organizations that provide services or could provide services such as the YMCA. There needs to be a work order management system. Primarily for staff so they have an organized way to report and then schedule and then follow up on maintenance needs. And for residents to allow them to answer identify and report needs back to the city. Welcome regards to system wide infrastructure. Site furnishing master plan. We highly recommend the city develop park standards for equipment and furniture and lighting and signage. Not only will this create a more cohesive park system, this will also allow staff to better maintain by having one system to maintain instead of a different piece of equipment in different parks. The connectivity master plan needed to identify the gaps and challenges and it should include an implementation to bridge those gaps. Signage and way finding again it's important for people to understand their parks often residents noted because they only drive, say, to the east in their daily commute or to school they didn't know there was a park within a 10-minute walk of them to the West. So way finding signage to direct residents and visitors to park amenities. The posting of rules and regulations needs to be system mat tick through out of the parks. Again, for system wide infrastructure the city needs to develop landscape standards for landscape and plant is and removal of invasive species. And infrastructure. And landscape care. Along with the landscape standards the city would implement a training program for the staff and volunteers we had numerous members of the community identify they would like to be engaged in volunteering and assisting the city with maintaining their neighborhood parks. But they need standards and they need training. Again, and lastly, green infrastructure master plan. There are a few areas where there are storm water management problems. These areas should be further identified and then green infrastructure installed. The last process of the refining and prioritizes was to priority phase and fund. We used community priorities that I noted before of connectivity, safety; accessibility, sustainability, adaptability, fiscal responsibility, focus on culture. And communication with partners. We also talked about the phase in steps the steps we recommend to follow for each step we recommended is to identify prelim nation coordination that needs to happen within the city structure, develop planning and policies and have them adjusted within again the city structure. Develop budget and funding for each project. Once the projected are funded you can go through design development and permits and bid. Not every project has all of the steps in these phases. But they do need to follow at least the first two steps where we have preliminary coordination between departments. And then updates to planning and policies. Funding options include devoting staff hours. Budget allocation. And then using budget allocation funds to go after grants at the federal state. And there's also private. Within the plan we identified grant opportunities at the federal level, the state level and then private opportunities such as AARP provides funding for connectivity and accessibility to public spaces. We are here today at the launch into action phase. Happy to say. And the first step is for City Council to adopt the plan. After adoption, it will be up to staff to continue to implement the phasing. And develop funding options. I wanted to thank the city for entrusting us with this plan. I apologize we couldn't share the visuals with you today. And we'll entertain any questions that you might have. Mr. Beiter : Thank you very much for that. Are there any questions from members of council at this time? Liz Miele. Ms. Miele: That was a very impressive laundry list of things we need to do. (Laughter). Valerie, I believe that part of the idea of completing parks and recreation plan for the city is we might be able then to secure follow-up funding for some goals outs lined are we currently looking at any follow-up funding for any of the components that were mentioned? In the report? And can you tell me -- So Joanne provided a great funding matrix for us based on recommendation she provided direct funding sources for us to apply for, which is fantastic. So some we were aware. And some we were not. We have not applied for anything specific based on this plan because most of the grant sources that we apply for ask for us to upload the plan so we are waiting for the plan to be finalized and move forward with. I will say there is one grant opportunity right now that Scott Williams is working with the local auto Bonn society. And Scott Livermore has been instrumental in it. It's a large project across all parks to address what Joanne mentioned with storm water problems. Scott, do you want to talk about that at all? No, no, no. Okay. But basically we would be working with the autobahn society to plan native trees that is difficult for our parks department to maintain or mow for whatever reason. So that's one thing that we've been looking at with in a partnership with autobahn knowing that this recommendation was coming with you but the DCNR funds that funded the plan then have follow-up funding opportunities to implement the plan. Ms. Miele: That's excellent. Because I agree with everything noted in this report. And Frankly there are things that I think from a limited review of it could also use to be done recreationally that aren't in here. But I think the thing is it is to me a bit of a damning perspective on our existing recreation within the city. And to my knowledge we don't really -- I know I requested a couple years ago we try to get a handle on the idea of how much replacing our existing parks equipment would cost us and what our timeline was for doing that because much of it is getting close to end of life. And we don't really have money set aside for that at this point. So we have many, many issues that need to be addressed with recreation and the city and several will come to you sooner rather than later. So I think this is an exciting first step. But I am excited to see us move on from this and hopefully knocking some of these issues out. Thanks. Mr. Beiter: Any other questions from members of council? I got one. I'm just excited. I'm the new guy. I'm looking at this plan. I love our parks. And without knowing all of the operations how we get from point A to Z this is really exciting. So thank you for the hard work you put into this. It is really exciting and thank you. And some of this we can piece together and right now we have an RFP out for engineering and we closed fit the Youngs Woods project which is close to $1 million project where we can start to implement some of these things like uniform signage and things we know that will happen at all of the parks we can do awe go along be with the parks project Ms. Miele: That's fantastic. Although I agree I think some Mr. Beiter asked for a vote. The resolution was carried with seven yes roll call votes. The vote was 7 to 0. All ere 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. Land Development – Revised land development Allan Emerson – Mulberry St Mr. Beiter asked for a motion and second. Mr. Pulizzi made the motion and it was seconded Mr. Milliken. Ms. Fessler Mr. Williams made me promise I would tell his joke, Groundhog Day was in February, yes we realize we are putting the same plan in front of you as we did the last meeting that's small variation on the plan. That's why we are back. The group is here if you have questions for them. But I'll go over this briefly. This was approved by the planning commission. And actually there was a member of the planning commission here if you have any questions. Pending council's approval this will need signature from whoever council appointees a the city's zoning administrator. It's been reviewed again by Bill Scott. Eric Smithgall and Scott Williams and their review letters is in our packet. There was small reconfiguration to the parking lot so you don't have to exit through the drive through as you exit the property. Liz you asked a question there was a section where you had to walk over to the grass to get onto this property from anywhere other than the parking lot, basically. And they corrected that and added a little crosswalk section there Ms. Miele: That's awesome. Ms. Fessler I believe there was a representative from T-Ross here as well as the developer if you have any questions. Mr. Beiter: Are there any questions from members of council? Mrs. Katz : The big hill going up, I can't remember the street. But you don't go up it with a stick shift it's heard than all get-out. The land development was carried with seven yes roll call votes. The vote was 7 to 0. All ere 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.  Appointments Williamsport Water & Sanitary Authorities Randall Allison is appointed to a term commencing 03/05/26 & ending 01/03/28 replacing Dr. Kent Trachte William Henderson is appointed to a term commencing 03/05/26 & ending 01/05/31 replacing Johnny Meyer Williamsport Parking Authority Debbie Allison is appointed to a term commencing 03/05/26 & ending 01/01/30 Ryan Rafferty is appointed to a term commencing 03/05/26 & ending 02/09/31 Mr. Beiter: Yes, motion passes 7-0. We will move back to our regularly scheduled program. Item number 6. We have Williamsport Water and Sanitary Authorities appointments of Randall Allison a very familiar name to a term commencing today, March 5, 2026 and ending on January 3, 2028. Replacing Dr. Kent Trachte. And William Henderson is appointed to a term commencing on March 5, 2026. And ending on January 5, 2031. Replacing Johnny Meyer. We also have a parking authority on here of Debbie Allison pointed to a term commencing March 5, 2026. And ending on January 1, 2030 And Ryan Rafferty is being appointed to a term commencing on March 5, 2026, and ending on February 9, 2031. Do I have motion,. Mr. Milliken made the motion and it was seconded by Mr. Pulizzi. Mayor: Good evening members of the administration and council. Randall Allison and William Henderson to the water and sanitary authorities and obviously randy was on council for a long time and worked at UGI and would be a great addition. And William Henderson brings great wealth of knowledge to the authorities from his personal and profit backgrounds. Then Debbie Allison and Ryan Rafferty to the Parking Authority. Don't generally bring Parking Authority appointments to council but since we had other appointments for transparency, we brought those. And we thank all of those individuals for stepping up and volunteering their time to authorities. And look forward to any questions you may have. Mr. |Beiter: Thank you very much. Mayor. This did come before us at our first committee the whole meeting. William Henderson was present. I've known Mr. Henderson for a number of years and we thank him for being willing to step up. Randall Allison was not present at that meeting. Thinks he gets special treatment, I don't know if we should take that into consideration tonight but I think we'll let that slide. And Debbie Allison we know very well. And Ryan Rafferty's relationship with the city we know that well. Any other questions from members of the council? Mayor I could add in real quick. And Johnny Meyer was a long standing member of the water and Stan stair authority, I should have thanked him for his many, many years on the many authorities and Dr. Kent Trachte retired from Lycoming college and moved on and that's the reason for his vacancy. Sorry about that. Mr. Beiter: Quite all right. Ms. Miele: Who will Debbie and Ryan be deploying on the marking authority. Adam Welteroth . Ms. Miele: Okay, all right. That was -- thank you, and I actually don't think randy was shirking us I don't think he knew he was on the agenda on Tuesday. I ran into him yesterday and I said so. And (Laughter) he said what do you mean I was on the agenda? It was unlike randy. But we are -- we obviously thank anyone willing to take on serving on the city authority or city board or commission but we are particularly fortunate to have these folks willing to step up. Thank you. The appointments were 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 Bill# 1892-26 Ordinance Transfer #1 (first reading) The City Clerk read the Ordinance. Mr. Beiter asked for a motion and a second. Mr. Mackey made the motion and it was seconded by Mr. Pulizzi. Ms. Livermore This is the first transfer Ordinance of the year. So this Ordinance is to allocate the funds for the levee just so we have everything in compliance and we are able to make the payments. This is just budgeting all of the funds that are required for the match. And in the line item in the emergency fund. And the money is not going to go anywhere it will stay there until needed and like she said there is a -- they are giving Augusts 25% up front and this is just the match money. So it's just for compliance and making sure we have everything budgeted correctly. There were no questions. 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 Bill# 1893-26 Ordinance Authorizing the Release & Satisfaction of Certain Mortgages Held by the City in Connection with HOME & CDBG Program Funded, Low-income Homeowner Rehabilitation Projects (first The City Clerk read the Ordinance. Mr. Beiter asked for a motion and a second Mr. Milliken made the motion and it was seconded by Mr. Mackey. Ms. Fessler. This Ordinance is relate willed the mortgages held he would by the city's homeowners who successfully completed one of the city home rehab programs. This Ordinance will remove any unnecessary income branses on these low-income home owners and reduce the administrative burden on city staff. This Ordinance went to committee I think we had a pretty lengthy discussion. If there are any additional questions. 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 # 10012 Resolution Authorizing Contract for Professional Consulting Services with SEDA-Council of Governments The City Clerk read the resolution. Mr. Beiter asked for a motion and a second. Mr. Mackey made the motion and it was seconded by Mr. Pulizzi. Ms. FesslerGood evening, again. Jamie Shroedeer is here from SEDA-COG. So I wanted to start this one off by thanking a Jamie. I know a lot see her on the Zoom screen but don't see her in person. Jamie has been instrumental in keeping the block grant program moving and getting a significant amount of funds spent for us over the last two years. Jamie has sew told me 17 people work behind-the-scenes in her office working telephone multiple layers of compliance the city is required to do. So it's not just Jamie we are contracting with. It's a whole team that's absolutely critical to making sure that the city is spending this money in a away that that compliant and we are avoiding repayments as you know any repayments to these grants cannot be paid out of the grant they have to be paid tout city's emergency fund. And utilizing Jamie and her team has been so critical for us moving forward and we've been able to do so many wonderful projects because of that. Since Jamie has been on board we've been meeting all of our had you had time HUD timeliness goals and spending is money in the manner they asked us. And so thank you to Jamie for all of that. You should have the contract before you. It's probably identical to the other contracts with SEDA-COG that you have seen. If you have any questions for me or Jamie, we would be happy to explain any items in a professional services agreement that you have in front of you. Ms. Miele Just (Laughter) for the public. It might be useful to outline why we are currently dealing with the 2025 fiscal year. Do you know what I'm saying? The resolution in front of me is that we are hiring SEDA-COG to do work on the 2025 fiscal year of CDBG because we I have is our allocation in October. Ms. Jamie I think we received our allocation in January of 2026. So the city typically receives their HUD allocation. So our 2025 allocation we would typically receive it in September or October of 2025 that's just the schedule that we are on with HUD. But because of the various shutdowns that happened last year it got bush pushed back further so we are just now going back for the projects that we'll be utilizing the 2025 money for. Ms. Miele: That's a great question,. : It looks weird I looked at the resolution like 2024 and it was like wait I probably know why. Ms. Fessler It does authorize us to use their services for the October 204 for the 2025 money. Thank you. Ms. Miele : But the only other question I would have about it seems the contracted amount hand the same for the however last many years and the city's funding has remained steady for the however last many years, accurate. To what extent is the city loses HUD funding moving forward will would we be able to spend less money on the obligation through SEDA-COG? I'm ray souping the same amount of work still exists one way or the other. Ms. Fessler> Yes and no. I guess primarily we don't anticipate -- I mean, would believe we can't predict the future and we certainly can't predict federal funding but at to point we don't anticipate cuts to the CBDG or HUD programs they've been so instrumental to communities of the federal legislators serve. They've been advocating hard for them and we don't anticipate cuts and the city doesn't anticipate cuts threw to come compliance. We don't foresee see that. The Liz the only way I can see to get around that is to start he have Receiving half of the amount of HUD money we do. Right now we can do a variety of programs and services so we have a emergency rehab program where we do housing rehab. We have a bike lane program that we are put county together and doing street reconstruction. And most likely we need to narrow our focus on what we are doing so that we would have probably one or two big projects. Lower administration would be the way to get around that. But I don't foresee any of that happening. No. Ms. Miele: That's awesome. That's good to know I was a little afraid we might be for most of my time on council the money -- the amount of funding we received has been gradually dropping. So that was good to know we don't see that continuing for a bit. Awesome. And Jamie it's nice to see you in person. (Laughter). Thanks, Eric. 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 # 10013 Resolution MOU between the City of Williamsport & River Valley Transit Authority The City Clerk read the resolution. Mr. Beiter asked for a motion and a second. Mr. Mackey made the motion and it was seconded by Mr. Milliken. Mayor: Good evening again and council and administration. What you have before you is a resolution and MOU between the City of Williamsport and RVTA as you know we've been working with them for a number of years now back and forth on this. On many issues, this being one of them. And we now reached a MOU with RVTA. Solicitor Kenyon spent a large number of hours on this. And we think it's fair for both entities. And we landed at a very good place we believe. So this is the MOU you have in front of you now. Mr. Beiter Thank you very much, Mayor Slaughter. One of the questions I have regarding this item is the line in paragraph number 3 that says the city owns RVTA $1. 6 million. Where did that come from? How is that going to be paid? Ms. Livermore, RVT paid the expenses for part of the agreement. And the city got the reimbursement. So it's in part of the capital projects fund. So we have the money allotted in part of capital projects. Not it's just in capital projects it's not using the money for capital projects but we received -- we received the reimbursements and it hasn't been paid to RVT at this point. We went through hours and hours of research to determine whether the city paid it or if the RVT paid it. We have the back up documentation showing what fees the RVT paid and what fees the city paid. Without this reimbursement we would have come out level like the city wouldn't have owed RVT anything and the RVT wouldn't have hoe owe the city anything. So because of this reimbursement that's only reason there's funds owed to RVT Mr. Beiter: Okay, any other questions from members on council? Liz Miele. Ms. Miele: Help me understand again. Where did the money come from that we open to RVT? We received it but you are also saying we spent it? Ms. Livermore> It was spent on able it was like a city revitalization project. So it was multiple revitalization projects all in one. I want to say it was years ago. RVT paid the expenses. So the expenses came out of the RVT checking accounts B but the reimbursement because the city and RVT were connect ed at the time came to a city account and didn't get dispersed to a city account Ms. Miele: But it's not like you found $1.7 million in a city account? Ms. Livermore> No, it was allocated and when Tracy had done the audits she had gotten part of it recognized and put it into where it was supposed to be. But no, it's not like we found this money missing. It was there. And allocated properly it was just in a city fund and never separated and given to RVT when they separated Ms. Miele: Subsequently the reason we pay out of $150 at a time. That was the agreement between RVT (overlapping speakers) no it's in a capital projects fund. That was an agreement that RVTA offered us at the time Ms. Miele: So we have the full amount of funding set aside? : We'll be earning interest on it until we pay it out 10 years from now. : That full amount of money that is set aside did not come out of the money we set aside for capital projects? Ms. Livermore No and at some point I may come back to you guys and discuss moving it into its own separate account and together it's all in with capital projects but we have it allocated with RVTA but it's in the capital projects account Ms. Miele: Got it. Seems to me like that would be better I'm trying to think like emergency and reserve. Ms. Livermore I haven't really thought much about it. But just to make sure that it stays separate. Ms. Miele: Okay and. That was not lined up in this year's budget anywhere I presume? Mr. Yoder: What's left in terms of the complete detachment between the city and RVTA? I know there's property stuff hanging out there and that is clearly a separate item per the MOU. But I see a lot of different things in here. I guess my question or my hope is that this is it. Mayor: I think this is it. I signed or we signed deed stuff this week or the week before. Working through the lease things that council that you guys the go ahead for in November or December or whatever that was. And this. This is the big -- this was the big-ticket item. So I think this is probably about it because the deeds have all been squared away. Mr. Yoder Noah you are back there and not on the podium but anything out there that you that you know of that needs to be reconciled in I say this as a frustrated member of council and I know you are frustrated too. This process was brutal for the number of different reasons but with hindsight we probably rushed this too fast, right? If we have taken another year, we could have worked through a lot of this and this would have been a lot cleaner that's one of the big regrets I have. In my 6 years and that's not your fault, Noahh at all. Mr. Beiter : It's been brutal on the part of the city because we've been the ones that lost property, lost millions of dollars at this point. And we understand that you need to be made whole as an entity and how the transportation dollars were used for this building. For example. So it has to go to a transportation entity. But this is one of those moments where yet again the city is being kicked while we are still down because of RVTA. Understandably but we really hope this is the end it. Mr. Yoder : You are not aware of anything floating out there from a detachment perspective? Noah Bower no, none Mr. Yoder: That's good news. 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 #10014 Resolution Authorizing an Agreement between City of Williamsport & Williamsport Area Little League (WALL) The City Clerk read the resolution. Mr. Beiter asked for a motion and a second. Mr. Milliken made the motion and it was seconded by Mr. Mackey. Mayor: This is just our standard annual renewal with WALL. For Brandon Park, baseball, and softball fields. Nothing has changed in this agreement. It's the same one we have done in the last number of years. Mr. Beiter, Thank you very much, Mayor Slaughter. We did bring this to our committee meeting only because of the newer relationship with WALL at Brandon Park. We wanted to make sure there was no big changes in there the leg requested or the city requested as they settled in there as we put the ARPA fund into that Ballfield. And thank you, Mr. Mackey for I impacting bringing that to us a few years ago as you did. Questions from council? I'm curious, two years out now that we updated those fields how are they holding up? Mayor: That's a good question; I think Councilwoman Katz asked that. There was a spot in the left center that was a short of drainage. And the contractor went back out there last year or the year before. And mitigated that. Other than the fields are looking great I don't think there's been major issues with them. WALL does a great job maintaining job and I know President Beiter and Mr. Mackey you are involved in that. And I heard that people are loving the fields and we are getting used again. And Lycoming County has the upper field so it's lot of baseball and softball being played in the parks. 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 #10015 Resolution Approving a Letter of Understanding between City & PA Dept. of Community & Economic Develop. The City Clerk read the resolution. Mr. Beiter asked for a motion and a second. Mr. Mackey made the motion and it was seconded by Mr. Pulizzi. Mayor what you have before you is a resolution improving a let other understanding wean the city and the Pennsylvania county community of development and economic development. We are selected for a handful of cities through a community technical assistance program where our planner would be embedded with us free of charge to the city from CDC. She happens to be here tonight and I'll let her speak here momentarily. But we are very fortunate as you all know we have a lot of moving parts and any free assistance the state would like to provide to us we are always pleased to receive. So this was one of those things we work intricately over the years with DCCD. And we were fortunate to have received granter fronting from that and this is another step in that and Rachel Hobbes is here and I'll turn it back to you, President Beiter. And Rachel can give a brief overview whoa she'll bring to the city. Rachel Hobbes Good evening I'm Rachel a local planning development special with the economic and community development. We are a subsection in the government center for local government I'm in the office of community planning. There's several of us scattered throughout the state I have the northeast region of the state. So Williamsport is actually in my territory. Our management team came up with a new program they wanted to pilot. This is the community's technical assistance program. Basically spending our time giving up to like 400 hours a community that we think could benefit from this. We were task of finding a community in conversations with the office it was actually Jonas who help you through the stamp program that recommended Williamsport to me. And after looking at some things going on we decided that you guys were an excellent candidate for it. You do great coming out of the stamp program. There's a lot projects here that are at the helm or underway to boost the economy boost the economy and I think this is like what and you had a community and economic development office which is huge and that's who I had the first conversations with. What we came up with after a supple ideas was to really do more. I know a citywide comprehensive plan is something that you are looking at in the future. This would be the step before that. We would do a lot of like pre-planning strategy. My -- one of the ideas and it's in the scope of work that was given to you is about creating a steering committee. And different members of the community. And focusing on a your vision. It could be anything you want it to be really, you know? To nail that down before you start your citywide comprehensive plan. Let me see here. We feel like preplanning assistance is effective. It's efficient. It's what we can do with limited resources and things like that. Now, in the future, if you do a citywide comprehensive plan we have our MAP program that I can also walk you through and help you with that. So I am the main planner for it. I do have some support planners that you might see or hear from that will help out with steering committee meetings. This is phased out over time. And I think I already have to push it a month back just from not getting here until March and things like that. But we are looking at probably like from now until probably about August. September.Ish. Things like that. So that's really all I have. What questions do you have for me. Mr. Beiter We are all waiting for you. (Laughter). Ms. Miele: I'm the big mouth on council. Nice to meet you. Mr. Beiter : You ask very good questions, though. Ms. Miele: It's not what he says in private. Anyway. We are excited to participate in this program. And to help pilot it. Can you talk to me about what input would be required from those of us on council. What sort of -- how we can help with this as -- Rachel You can be as involved as you want to be. I would obviously appreciate maybe two of you to be on the steering committee. Anyone from a downtown organization that you have. A parks and recreation to be on there. I'm looking for about I don't like to go too big. We all know how that can get Ms. Miele: It's real fun getting meetings together when you got 20 people. Ms. Hobbs We'll do a virtual option. I want to make it as easy and painless for everyone as possible. The more participation the better from all of you. I live about an hour and a half away it's not like I can be here constantly. But I want to give you the best and most of my time. If two would jo join the steering committee I'm looking for 10 to 12 members for that steering committee to come up with a strategy and pre-planning process. And I need public input I'm not from here to the more input the better. Ms. Miele: Yeah I think that's particularly key. Every community in my experience is squirrely in it own weird ways but Williamsport we are certainly as squirrely as anybody else. (Laughter). And yeah. So the better community input we can get I know that I'm currently kind of working on home rule which was although another thing that came out of the stamp process. But I would imagine we might have some people on council who would be interested in participating in this. And that even more than that, we might be able to -- I will try as hard as I said to try of folks who might be valuable resources. What I'm assuming right obviously public safety and things are of interest in this plan but what specific community roles are we thinking that might be valuable to have on the steering committee? Ms. Hobbes Obviously members of council or any downtown organizations that you have. Any person from parks and recreation committees that you have. Your city employees and obviously the community and economic development office that's who I will primarily be working with. (overlapping speakers) it's not my decision either. I will reach out to these people and invite them and include them. But I am happy to take any and all input of who you feel would be the most valuable in here. Ms. Miele: Guys what do you think? We don't get a lot of opportunities where all the members of council are sitting together so this is a good moment if you have people that you think or I guess a way of which you think we should structure this it's not laid out. Ms. Hobbs> Anything that comes up you have my contact. Ms. Miele : I understand that. But sometimes we think better in groups. >> 100% (Laughter). Right. But yeah. I guess I'm trying to think of ways for a steering committee to then perhaps reach out tent calls for a lack of a better term, that's a terrible term from the community and solicit input from the people in the community. I think that's a valuable a trickle up effect from folks on the ground. And I would be excited to see that take place. I think there are a lot of things that we have traditionally overlooked and we talked talked about this in committee on Tuesday but Williamsport's comprehensive plan has historically always been part of the county. They mentioned that to me (overlapping speakers) : Preplanning is something we haven't really tone before. And I think the city is so unique within the county that often times the city's needs and projects get lost a little bit within the needs of the larger county so I'm really excited. Ms. Hobbs I think you are a large enough city that you need your own. And I think that was my first question when I contacted you. And I saw a lot of plans and I said where's the comprehensive plan like what we do with Lycoming county? But a goal was to you to have your own Ms. Miele: I think that's key. And particularly with the population challenges facing most of central Pennsylvania but particularly facing Williamsport A comprehensive plan that focuses on increasing population and increasing public involvement. And building for -- building to hopefully better serve our communities so that we become a place that people stay and choose to move to is, to me a lot of what a comp plan should be constructed around. Ms. Hobbes> Yes. We are seeing a trend of this across the commonwealth. For instance, there was one planner at ECDC two years ago and added 10 of us because there's such a demand Ms. Miele: So you are effectively to a certain extent replacing the small cities that don't have the time to do that. That's excellent. We are pleased to look at this. Thank you. Mr. Beiter : Any other questions from members of council? Thank you for being here, we are really appreciate, we are really excited. Mrs. Frank. 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 # 10016 Resolution Authorizing an Agreement Between the City of Williamsport & Barry Isett The City Clerk read the resolution. Mr. Beiter asked for a motion and a second. Mr. Mackey made the motion and it was seconded by Mr. Pulizzi. Mayor this is t for zoning enforcement officer while we are in the application process so for Gary Knarr his job is posted and for interim we have a lot of zoning requests comes in and permits that need to be reviewed and go out the door. So Barry Isett who we work with at glen and BCO is able to have a zoning officer, Phil on the call virtual he is able able to step in the interim period so the plan reviews and permits continue to be executed. He's on if there's questions for him. But that's the interim plan right now. Mr. Beiter: Any questions from members of council? Liz, I will say you brought up really good points in the meeting about the long-term plans for the code department. I don't know if you wanted to bring that up now or if you were satisfied with the answer. Mr. Yoder: What is the answer. Ms. Miele: That we are working on a longer term -- why don't we ask Derek? Mayor: Councilman Pulizzi and I are working with our labor attorney right now on codes related things that we could have executive session on that side of things and some personnel side of things and it's a application and she'll with the zoning applications and applications have started to come in. we haven't got even that were remotely close to the qualifications. So once the next few months here once we work with our labor attorney and the state labor relations board then that will be able to look at some longer-term items from there. Ms. Miele : We had a bit of this discussion but it's worth flushing out. God for it. Mr. Yoder : Do we have a timeline the zoning officer is a council appointment. Do we have a timeline on (overlapping speakers) has there be a timeline discussed from our perspective. Certainly -- (overlapping speakers) if we get a quality applicant tomorrow it will be on your agenda if two weeks it's hard to put a timeline on. Mr. Yoder: It's hard to get without the applications. Mayor We had to do this because there's so many emails coming in for zone item les. Mr. Yoder: I understand. I wanted to be sure of the timeline process. That was the real issues (overlapping speakers). Mayor: It's posted as soon as we get a applicant that meets it. Ms. Miele: I think what we actually needed to decide on is a timeline for if we don't find a successful applicant a timeline for looking at the RFP for these services or all services long term. How long have we contracted for the Barry Isett. Mayor answered probably around 2 years. Ms. Miele: If we are looking at long-term adding to the scope of that contract then I would like to see us put thought into what that look likes for the codes department as a whole and put it out for an RFP instead of simply end extending our services for the company. Not that I wouldn't necessarily anticipate Barry as a submitting a response to our RFP and possibly getting it. But I think that we need a more holistic plan. And that we need to just see what sort of services are out there. The one reason I say that particularly to Barry is that I would like to see whoever is handle some of these things be nearby to the city if not necessarily within the city because there's some elements of codes management that are better done with close closer to home. I suppose. But anyway, so yeah, I think Adam, to your point what we should decide on is a point at which we are going to say okay we may not get an application for someone that we want to higher. We need to look at this as a longer-term obligation. Because it sounds like to me that's what you are saying will happen, Derek. Mayor: I agree. And Councilman Pulizzi and I have been exploring a number of options including that. I 100% agree. Ms. Miele: Great. And the other question I had is once we authorize, presuming we authorize this contract tonight, when does Barry, when does Phil come online? Mayor: He is ready to go tomorrow. I already -- our emails have been filling up so I said to him, I will hit as soon as probably before the ink is dry. So he's ready to go. There's just some things people waiting on extension of premises and different things that have to be reviewed. Ms. Miele: Somebody today was waiting on an outdoor seating permit and those will get crucial here in a couple weeks. Mayor Exactly that's why we had to move this. Ms. Miele: But yeah. Good. That's right. I think everybody knows somebody waiting on some sort of zoning work and we don't want that to be a hold up for new projects in the city. Thanks. 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 #10017 Resolution Authorizing an Agreement Between the Williamsport Bureau of Fire & The Ceiling Guys The City Clerk read the resolution. Mr. Beiter asked for a motion and a second. Mr. Milliken made the motion and it was seconded by Mr. Mackey.? Chief this resolution is brought to you tonight this has been one of the projects that the economic development of Valerie's team has been very vital over the last couple years helping us to get improves in our firehouse this is for a new ceiling in our engine Bay Area. It's been in an order of disarray for probably 10 to 20 years and this will get us back to serving a purposes where it's meant to be. This money coming out the PA municipal fire grant. So it's like at that point again I got to thank Val for that. : 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 Resolution # 10018 Resolution Authorizing an Agreement between the Williamsport Bureau of Fire & ESO The City Clerk read the resolution. Mr. Beiter asked for a motion and a second Mr. Milliken made a motion and it was seconded Mr. Mackey. Chief ESO is the software system that you guys approved in a previous resolution. As we've been working through as I've been learning to be Chief. We have a third party company that's is a called PA fire recovery that does our rescue billing if you ares and go in the reports and pull out what is necessary and bill what they are allowed to in the State of Pennsylvania. And we can get an unknown number depending on the type of equal calls we have for that year for the return. And in order to have that access for a company as a third party I have to pay this $848 to ESO for them to access this information. . 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 #10019 Resolution Awarding Construction Inspection Services for Levee Pump Stations Electrical Upgrades Project The City Clerk read the resolution. Mr. Beiter asked for a motion and a second Mr. Pulizzi made the motion and it was seconded by Mr. Mackey. Mr. Scottl. I have resolution to present for your consideration. This resolution authorizing engineering services for construction oversight and inspection for a levee pump station project. The project involves electrical I pro.s at pump station as part of the FEMA legislative disorders 8 million earmarked that Betsy previously talk about. And GPI and Greenman Peterson is their full name and for inspection and management for a total lump sum not to exceed $145,194. This unanimous recommendation selection is based on the RFP that Betsy previously talked about. She presented earlier tonight. . 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. Milliken voted yes, Mr. Mackey voted yes, Mrs. Katz didn’t reply,, Ms. Miele voted yes, Mr. Pulizzi voted yes, and Mr. Beiter voted yes Resolution #10020 Resolution Appointing Design Engineer for Four Primary Levee Projects The City Clerk read the resolution. Mr. Beiter asked for a motion and a second Mr. Pulizzi made the motion and it was seconded by Mr. Mackey. Mr. Scott s. Those projects are for the relief wells under mitigation and avenue flood wall and cross pipes, rehabilitation, and electrical upgrades at pump stations. This is also part toffee ma legislative $8 million earmark that Betsy previously talk about. A comm submitted qualification ifs for design and permitting and bid documents. This is base t z qualification-based selection, QB S. no fees. This was from the proposal dated February 18th. If so selected will prepare and submit individual cost proposals for each project when we get to those and again this is a few nan mouse recommendations by us and after we pout the RF Q that Betsy talk about earlier. >> Any questions from members of the council? Ms. Miele: It liked as though scored significantly higher in that QBS than Wood or whatever the name of that -- : Thank you, I had a hard time keeping track over the years. Who had done a substantial amount of other work on our levee. It was exciting to me to see us working to be presented with a new company to do some work on the levee because we have done so much work with WSP/Woods slash whatever other names they had. But this I think is their first time doing work on Williamsport levee is that correct? > Yes. A little bit about them you probably read their proposal. This is a international firm. They rebuilt New Orleans after Katrina. New York City, battery park. they have substantial qualifications and expertise Ms. Miele: That's excellent. And I'm excited and I think most to the point they actually finished work in New Orleans and New York City. Great. (Laughter). We are very excited about that. (Laughter). But yes. I'm excited to see a new firm stepping into the levee work. And was excited to read their qualifications as well. So thank you, Bill, for bringing this to us. 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 #10021 Resolution to Adopt & Submit Act 537 Sewage Plan for Bloomingrove Road Project The City Clerk read the resolution. Mr. Beiter asked for a motion and a second Mr. Mackey made the motion and it was seconded by Mr. Pulizzi. Mr. Scott n. This resolution is to adopt act 537 component-3 planning module for the blooming grove road intern sense relocation department. The appellant department of animal protection allows the municipality to adopt a official sewage facility plan and. The City of Williamsport with the Williamsport township and authority has sewage planning module. The and the project involves relocating a 8-inch sewer main to a new alignment in bloominggrove road. The project will start 56 feet north of the road in the township and continuing 1 miles south on Myers south and turn south to one block on high land terrace and this is from the Williamsport authority to make the sewers and manholes for accessible if for routine maintenance. That's pretty much it in a wrap. I have Eric Smithgal if the director of engineering if the sanitary authority online Mr. Beiter: Are there questions from members of council regarding this item? A quick question I have about the cost to the city about this and what kind of disruption are we looking at Blokinggrove road that high lander the race interaction, when do we expect that to start? Eric, did you hear that? Mr. Beiter I did. Members of council thank you very much for entertaining this resolution here. The Williamsport sanitary authority received a PA H2O grandparent for this project for the amount of $3 million and the rest of the cost of the construction will be covered through cash counts and rates. The so estimator grant requirement is roughly the 2/3 paid for by the grant and 1/3 paid for by the sanitary authority. And the construction is anticipated to begin sometime this summer. And we will make sure that we notify residents ahead of that. : Excellent. Seeing and hearing nothing else from members of council. Mrs. Frank. 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 #10022 Resolution Authorizing for Purchase of Cub Cadet Pro z Dual Wheel Mowers with Cool Tops The City Clerk read the resolution. Mr. Beiter asked for a motion and a second Mr. Mackey made the motion and it was seconded by Mr. Pulizzi Mr. Beiter : Mr. Livermore this sounds like something I need at my house for the grass. Ms. Miele: Does it also have a beard? (Laughter). Mr. Livermore what you have before you is resolution authorizing the purchase two cub cadets from golf at $4,662.88. This is in our capital project flood line item. And we are replacing them with a vent track. So it's a single machine we have right now. We did demo on them last year. And trying to cut some costs and some machines we got. And we got two of these for price of one. And does the same thing on the levee. So it's a especially type machine that does the mowing of the levees. How cool is the top? Let me know in August when I put you on it. Mr. Beiter Because these are for levee, were they taken out -- we got a forgive me, I don't remember, where they taken out of -- okay. It was the flood by byline item. Flood capital project line item. Mr. Beiter : Can these be used in other places in the city if they have to be? Yes. They are just pretty much a zero turn on steroids. Mr. Beiter : Any other questions from members of council? 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 Resolution # 10023 Resolution Approving Substantial Amendment to Fiscal Year & Annual Action Plan for Community Development Block Grant Program The City Clerk read the resolution. Mr. Beiter asked for a motion and a second Mr. Mackey made the motion and it was seconded by Mr. Pulizzi. Mr. Daily. So tonight we have for you a resolution to conduct a substantial amendment to our 2025 fiscal year action plan. We'll be moving $45,000 out of the Scott street pocket park that we previously budgeted for. And moving that into a street reconstruction. The park is just not ready to move forward at this point in time and we feel it would be best to get these funds somewhere we can utilize them and revisit that at a later date if be if need be. And Jamie is here from SEDA-COG yet if there are additional questions from the process or anything like that, happy to have her come up and speak. Mr. Beiter: Any questions from members of council? Seeing and hearing none. Mrs. Frank. 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 #10024 Resolution Authorizing Award of Professional Services Agreement to Hunt Engineers, etc. for Engineering Service for Improvements at Sojourner Truth Ministries The City Clerk read the resolution. Mr. Beiter asked for a motion and a second Mr. Pulizzi made the motion and it was seconded by Mr. Milliken. Mr. Daily Thank you again. We are seeking to enter into a professional services agreement with Hunt engineering. We have Chris Kaiser here representing them if there are questions. The key focus of this agreement would be to conduct a facility study for Sojourner truth ministries on High Street so we could identify what improvement to do CDBG funds moving forward. Ands that project we are ex extremely excited to work on as a department. And findings from this initial study will be used to conduct this work. And their team can do construction inspection and do the designs and help with the bid process and all items relate conducting the work here. Mr. Beiter : Any questions from members of council regarding this item? Liz. Ms. Miele: What work are we contemplating doing at Sorjourner Truth? Mr. DailyWe identified a number of repairs from the that would be a good use for the CDBG funds. They have some electrical issues that hinder their ability to serve their population they serve there. And our team has gone up and done a walk through and Chris was able to go up as part of the process. So working with them to get their electrical needs in order. And they also have issues with the heating system there where when we were up in the winter around December, their staff were wearing gloves and coats indoors because it's so cold in their sanctuary and likewise in the summer time their air conditioner is not able to meet the need that is there. They also have a pretty substantial lack of the insulation in the sanctuary. So this plan this initial component will be able to figure out what we can best do for them. With our CDBG funds. And then moving forward we'll be able to work with them most likely in phases so that we can do the work but not ever overextended ourselves on CDBG. Ms. Miele: Got it. And just how do we select this project just versus other community needs. Mr. Daily -- we do outreach and stuff like that. But we had the public hearing. Jamie they came out too and stuff like that too. So it was just one that rose to the top. And we were thrilled to be working with them on this but it's an eligible expense with CDBG and we are looking forward to moving forward. Chris, would you like to come up and speak? I know you did the site visit and you waited so patiently here with us. Speaker Good evening, members of council. Yeah, very excited to have this be one of Hunt's as we open a new office here in Williamsport this would be one of our potential projects and the theme of the night has been a lot of talk about planning. I know, you heard a lot about master plans and plans. And it's becoming more and more apparent that putting together a quality plan will help spend the dollars a bit more wisely in the future. And visiting that facility a few weeks ago when it was maybe 10 degrees was very eye opening. And was -- those folks there are doing incredible work so it's going to be a project that's going to be very, you know, make us very proud to be contributors of so -- Mr. Beiter: Thank you very much for that. Seeing and hearing nothing else from council then. (off microphone). 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 # 10026 Resolution Approving an Agreement with Eastlake Derry & Assoc. LLC to Provide ADA Consulting Services to the City of Williamsport The City Clerk read the resolution. Mr. Beiter asked for a motion and a second Mr. Mackey made the motion and it was seconded by Mr. Milliken. Mayor. This is resolution with east lake dairy that's mark dairy who we worked with for many years now through our ADA services and consent decree. These consulting’s services are actually a proactive step that was recommended by Nick grimes actually. To create a transition plan. And it's actually a requirement for all cities to have one. This came up through the ADA process that we've been going through for a number of years now. And nick brought this to our attention that this is needed. We do not currently have one in the city. And so Nick and I worked together on it. alongside Sil as well. It's not part of K CIL as well. It's not under the consent decree we are under but it's par of the ADA federal requirement to have a transition plan. And since Mark Derry was the one we were working with it makes sense to consult with him on this transition plan. It's basically a umbrella if forty and all our ADA services and any barriers that exist and projects and everything that we do to make sure we keep ADA at the forefront, policies and procedures, et cetera, et cetera, it's the roadmap for all of our ADA things that we have already done and things that will be doing in the future. Nick and I had a few conversations with Mark, and what we were thinking and he agreed it was the correct next steps to take. So that we don't end up under another consent decree. So that's where we are here today. And Nick put a lot of time and energy into this as well. Mr. Beiter: Thank you very much, Mayor Slaughter. Questions from members of council regarding this item? Mr. Pulizzi. Mr. Pulizzi: Quickly I was wondering if where the funding the 21,000 shoo this is going to come out of legal services that legal item. Jamie and I talked about that. So this is legal. . 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 #10025 Resolution Authorizing a Right-of-Way Agreement between the City & Avco Corp. The City Clerk read the resolution. Mr. Beiter asked for a motion and second. Mr. Milliken made the motion and it was seconded by Mr. Mackey. Mayor Second shoo this is my final one for if evening and good evening members of the council and the administration. What you have here is a resolution authorizing a right-of-way and easement agreement between the city and Avco. Avco is required if I by the Environmental Protection Agency, EPA to monitor for environmental hazards. Part of that is they need to do some work obviously to properly monitor. And so having said that, don't need to install certain monitoring extraction systems. Et cetera. To be in compliance with the EPA. Some of that goes over by the levee. And that area. And so this is what this easement agreement is for. Again, Nick Grimes worked on this one. I know he's not here tonight but this is another one of them that he worked on. So I'm not intimately familiar with this. I did have a conversation with Nick. He reviewed all of these and put it together. Mr. Beiter: Any questions from member of council? Liz Miele. Ms. Miele: If not under this agreement I'm sure there's a mechanism of some sort whereby if Avco were to discover any contaminates of this process and the wells the city would be notified, correct? Mayor: I'm I assuming I think that's the whole point. I think that would be part of the legal procedure. And again Nick worked on this one but I do imagine if they find something they have to notify not only EPA but notify all of us. Ms. Miele: And we have received notifications in some cases but also not received notifications in other cases. I don't see something specific in agreement so I was reading it quickly so I might have missed it. Mayor: I can ask that question and follow up with Nick but I would think that's the whole point. Ms. Miele: The whole point is an easement to allow them to gather materials. Mayor: To let us know if there was a problem. Ms. Miele: Okay. Just wanted to make sure that was part of the -- Mayor: I can ask them tomorrow. Mr. Beiter asked for a vote on the resolution. 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 Accept for filing Finance Committee Minutes 10/14/25 Public Safety Minutes 06/03/25 ERC Minutes 06/05/24 Controller’s Report January 2026 Mr. Beiter asked for a motion and a second to accept these for filing. Mr. Milliken made the motion and it was seconded by Mr. Mackey. The minutes were accepted for filing 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 Announcements The next regularly scheduled City Council meeting will be held on Thursday, March 19, 2026 at 7:00 PM, Trade & Transit II 144 West Third St, 3rd floor, Williamsport, PA. There will be an executive session immediately following this City Council meeting. Upcoming Meetings: Wednesday March 11 3:30 PM O&E Pension Tuesday, March 17 1:00 PM Committee of the Whole 6:30 PM HARB Wednesday, March 18 10:00 AM Blighted Property Thursday, March 19 10:30 AM Zoning Hearing 7:00 PM City Council Meeting Comments: a. Members of the Public b. Council Comments c. Administration d. News Media Adjournment Meeting adjourned upon motion by Mr. Milliken and a seconded by Mrs. Katz Meeting adjourned 8:58 PM with unanimous ayes. Submitted by: Janice M. Frank City Clerk