City Council

Thursday, April 30, 2026 7:00 PM Williamsport, PA Council President Eric Beiter brought the Williamsport City Council meeting to order on Thursday, April 30, 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 Ottaviano,, Police Chief, Adam Yoder, Councilman Solicitor Austin White Jon Mackey, Councilman, Janice Frank, City Clerk David Dussinger Jamie Livermore Scott Livermore, S&P Absent: Kris Black Jonah Milliken, Councilman Adam Welt3rroth, Treasurer Bill Scott Members of the public Approval of the Williamsport City Council minutes of 4//16/26 & 04/21/26 approved upon a motion by Mr. Pulizzi and second from Dr. Yoder. All were in favor with a vote of 6 to 0. Limited Courtesy of the Floor Mr. Joseph Pawlak . Scott Miller, 822 Tucker street, Williamsport, Pennsylvania. About. four weeks ago I submitted a right to know request about how come I'm not being given community development funding and Mr. Joe help. And I received a thing back from them Pawlak Mr. Gary Knarr stating that Austin Daily notified me verbally that I didn't qualify for the emergency home program. Well, there's a lot Mr. Tom Cillo C. Dean more programs than just the emergency program. You all acceptedDave American resChief Young, Police crew plan money. The Chief He commonwealth legislature had to pass a bill in 2021 to accept the money. Sol. J. David AndSmith people think I'm going to be taking Janice Frank, City Clerk, absent money from the city. No. There's one program I will focus on. The HUD, American Todd Heckman, Rescue Fire Chief , Plan COVID-19 homeowner repair and improvement loans at 1% interest. I qualified for that but the city didn't feel the need to help residents News Media achieve that. All you took your American Rescue Plan money and used it however but you all didn't help the people. And I want to know why. I think it's fair and reasonable to go y'all are supposed to be here to help the city and the residents therein. And I'm not being helped and I keep getting brushed around and nonsense. Just plain nonsense because there are a lot more programs than just emergency programs. And I can't be the only poor person in the City Members of Williamsport. So all I ask for is the truth, the whole truth and nothing butofthe Newstruth Mediaso help you God. Members of the news media And short of that, I don't know how to go about to get the City Council and the Mayor to be here for the benefit of its citizens. And that's about all I have to say I'm just thoroughly, thoroughly disgusted with you all. Because you all had the power to install somebody that all they had to do was fill out a stupid form and I could have gotten $50,000 at 1% interest. Or if you told me we aren't doing those programs I could have gotten a 3% mortgage on my own without any city helped. But because I assumed the city was here to help people, I waited and waited and waited. And if I had even known last year as of December 31st, the HUD program was closed off. And I needed something from the city saying we ain't doing that. And I could have at least gone to them and say, hey, they aren't doing that. But a 3% mortgage on $50,000 would have saved me $1,250. That's more than my city and county taxes combined. You all cost me $1,250. And if I would have gotten the HUD $50,000.01% interest that would have $2,250. That's more than my city, county, school tax, my homeowners insurance combined. What are you doing for me? Please, prove to me that you are here to help me. Ordinance #6526 Ordinance Approving the Editing & Inclusion of Certain Ordinances as Parts of the Various Component Codes of the Codified Ordinances of Williamsport, PA. (final reading) The City Clerk read the ordinance. Mr. Beiter asked for a motion and second. Mr. Pulizzi made the motion and it was seconded by Mr. Mackey. Mr. Beiter So what this is something we do every year just allows Mrs. Frank to file everything she needs to that we pass on a biweekly basis. We talked about this our City Council meeting two weeks ago. Are there any questions that have come up since then? Seeing and hearing none, Mrs. Frank. The Ordinance was carried in final reading with six yes roll call votes. The vote was 6 to 0. All were in favor. Dr. Yoder voted yes, Mr. Mackey voted yes, Mr. Dussinger voted yes, Ms. Miele voted yes, Mr. Pulizzi voted yes, and Mr. Beiter voted yes. Mr. Milliken was absent. Bill# 1895 Ordinance Transfer Ordinance #8 (final reading) The City Clerk read the ordinance. Mr. Beiter asked for a motion and second. Mr. Pulizzi made the motion and it was seconded by Mr. Mackey.; Ms. Livermore This is the second reading of the Ordinance number 8 which is the annual transfer of over budget tax revenue into the emergency fund. We went over this in the last City Council meeting. Mr. Beiter: We did. Are there any questions for the second reading? Seeing and hearing none, Mrs. Frank. The Ordinance was carried in first reading with six yes roll call votes. The vote was 6 to 0. All were in favor. Dr. Yoder voted yes, Mr. Mackey voted yes, Mr. Dussinger voted yes, Ms. Miele voted yes, Mr. Pulizzi voted yes, and Mr. Beiter voted yes. Mr. Milliken was absent. Ordinance Amending, Article 521 & Article 522 of the Codified Ordinances of the City of Williamsport (first reading) The City Clerk read the ordinance. Mr. Beiter asked for a motion and second. Mr. Mackey made the motion and it was seconded by Ms. Miele Mr. Beiter: I believe we have a representative from the parking authority here this evening. If you wouldn't mind introducing yourself so everyone knows who you are. My name is Nikki Winner I'm the manage other of the Williamsport parking authority. Good evening, Jared Kinley, Chairman. Ms. Winner So we were looking to get the Ordinances amended for increasing ticket violation fines. The first one would be for blocking a fire hydrant or parking within 15 feet of the hydrant. It's currently at $10, we were looking to increase that to 25. The same would be for a loading zone violation. That is currently at 10. And that would be increasing to 25. There's also no parking here to corner starting at 10, and continuing up to $25. And for the trucks only loading zones we are currently at 10 and would be going to 25. The resident permits we were looking to see about getting those increased. They are currently at $1 for students and renters. Weaponed to increase those to 25. It will continue to be free for homeowners because currently at the $1 it's not even covering the production cost for those permit tags. And blocking a crosswalk is currently at $10, that would be going to 25. And parking in a reserved spot in the garage or the office street lots currently at 10, going to 20. And then on street fines for the meters it's currently $10. And only 5 if you pay within 24 hours. We wanted to increase that to 20. And have the discount at $10 if paid within 24 hours. We were looking to get these increases made because we had not actually increased the fines in around 15 years. And just with operations cost aging equipment and repairs necessary. We also have not been receiving any federal grants we run entirely on the revenue that we take Mr. Beiter: Are there questions from members of council regarding this item? Liz Miele. Ms. Miele: Is there a period of notification before this takes effect other than the 20 days from the second reading, Austin? Mr. White We can do a period of notification. We have discussed about advertising in the paper between the two readings. And then we can also do another article with them. Ms. Miele: I guess what I'm wondering is like some sort of a grace system as in in the first violation you bring this forward it's $10 but you bring this in its 5. For example, when I was feeding on the construction zone a couple years ago we got noticed we were tagged going faster than the limit. This said this is a notification you were going over the speed limit. And this one is on us and the next time we tag you going over the speed limit you will get a massive traffic fine. It might be a nice way to introduce something like that, given how people feel about parking authorities in general. (Laughter). And at least it would give people a little bit of grace to figure out now their violations are going to be more expensive than they have been Ms. Winner, We have our exoneration in place where we could utilize that for that purpose. Because we have what we call a first time courtesy that we could do for those individuals that with respect aware of it Ms. Miele: I think that might be -- I don't disagree that especially things, you know, permit fees should equal the amount of money that we are put into issuing them but I think it's a nice thing to give someone a little bit of notice before we don't blind side them. Thanks. Ms. Miele What are the current enforcement hours? Ms. Winner Currently they are 9:00 to 6:00. We only have one enforcement officer on currently because we had lost our previous senior enforcement officer last year. So I am looking to have one of our new maintenance staff cross trained for evenings that would extended the time further possibly to 6:30 or 7:00. With the proposed increase are you looking to change the hours, other than bringing on the additional person? Ms. Winner No, we weren't looking to change the hours. Mr. Mackey. : Couple questions. I'm going to follow up on Councilman Pulizzi's first question. So we are currently at 9:00 to 6:00 enforcement and that's downtown only? It's downtown and also for the college areas. What we consider zone 1 and zone 2 for Lycoming college and Penn College. Mr. Mackey spent a decent amount of time downtown and I see people putting money in meters 7:00, 8:00 at night when there's nobody down there enforcing it. I don't know, it doesn't feel right to me. So could we -- is there any way we could change the signage to reflect the actual time that it's being enforced? Would be my question. On that specific topic. Yes, we could do that. Because we coordinated with the River Valley transit for them to repost in the midtown lot when they adjusted their rate for that parking lot and they already increased their tickets for $20 for that. So we could absolutely whether it's a sticker on the meters or a signage to be placed Mr. Mackey : I'm thinking of a nice way to say this. But feels like if we are going to charge people to park until 9:00 at night and only enforce it until 6:30, that doesn't feel right to me. So yeah, I don't know if that's something that we can look at or you can look at. Ms. Winner All the street meters do say until 6:00 Mr. Mackey: I feel like there's a lot of signage that says 9:00. Each individual meter is until 6:00. The pay stations the midtown one that's until 7:00. And we have the ability to do that but we have ad enforcement officer. Do we want to do that? No, but we have a lot of people paying through all day and taking the $10 ticket and instead of paying the $9 to gamble to feed the meter and it takes up for people to come down and do business. And some people park all day for $9 but they don't buy a pass for $25 but they they haven't parked there yet because it's too expensive to do that Mr. Mackey: Farce the parking decals for the college zones is that still an issue? I just feel like -- and I could speak more to Penn College but Penn College seems to increased the amount of parking they have for students. Do you find that a lot of college students are buying these $1 decals. We do because there's a lot of off-campus housing for both campuses Mr. Mackey : Right and you are getting complaints from residents they don't have a place to park. The homeowners especially people who lived in their houses for 20 or 30 years. Mr. Mackey : Okay. And then I hate to bring this up. But probably the most difficult question is can you all talk to me about the debt that's not being paid that the city is covering for the parking authority right now? And when is that going to be rectified? How is that going to be rectified? If you need to get get me an answer to that after -- I don't want to put you on the spot but this is, to me, the biggest thing for me is we are talking about raising fines for our citizens when they are essentially paying your debt. I would have to actually talk to our solicitor about that because I know there's been a lot of conversation back and forth concerning it. And I did not have a resolution for that. Mr. Beiter What I would ask of you in regards to that, if you could get us an answer sometime between now and the second reading of this item. So that way, we can have a little bit more conversation among ourselves about it. But to be clear, these are increases on the fines for violating parking not paying properly, so on. Parking in the wrong spot. This is not an increase in the rate when you go to feed the meter. No just for the violation cost for tickets that are written there's a misconception with some of the citizens in town we do get funding from the city directly from people paying property taxes and it does not go right into our accounts. Like we actually are running right on the revenue that we take in. Mr. Yoder : My only between this reading and next my only ask would be like look we are increasing fines. Can we make sure we have all of our meters working and that kind of thing? I suspect this is in the minority in the outlier but I parked on Third Street here on Tuesday for a meeting and the meter was dead. So I literally couldn't pay. So some kind of thought detail into what your current Ordinance looks like and what's the plan to get those rectified. Probably not good for us to increase fines when people literally can't pay, even in a isolated incident. Any feedback you have on that at second reading would be appreciated Our enforcement officer has been notified maintenance so we can get a work order for those. And a lot is a simple battery swap because it's a rechargeable battery and it's a trickle charge from the solar panel at the top. (off microphone) we can't ticket that. So we are losing revenue there. But everything that we are doing we are spending a lot of money and our bank account is dwindling so we either have to start put things in there and being able to make these changes or we are going to have a problem here. Mr. Mackey: I mean, I might make a motion to table this. So we have more time to talk about it. As opposed to voting on it tonight. But that's fine if nobody wants to second that. > I would be okay voting to pass this in the first reading and if we didn't get the answers we were looking for to table before the second reading. . Ms. Miele I think I'm fine Moving it forward from the second reading because we asked questions and asked for answers next time. And I think that's not a bad idea. And that said I think if we are airing all the looming questions that - - or conversations the city had about parking authority items, the other question was what you just touched on, Mr. Kinley, I know the parking authority is behind on audits but we haven't had a update on where the parking authority stands in a long time and we would appreciate getting a heads up about that. Because that is I don't think any of us doubt that the parking authority probably needs revenue because all of us can see the condition of some of the parking authority lots but understanding how the money is being spent? What we are doing would be crucial. Mr. Beiter: Anything else from other members? Right now we are voting to pass this in the in the first reading. Hoping to get some answers from you two before the second reading. And see where it goes then from Mr.. Mrs. Frank. The Ordinance was carried in first reading with five yes roll call votes. The vote was 5 to 1 All were in favor. Dr. Yoder voted yes, Mr. Mackey voted no,, Mr. Dussinger voted yes, Ms. Miele voted yes, Mr. Pulizzi voted yes, and Mr. Beiter voted yes. Mr. Milliken was absent. Resolution #10059 Resolution Awarding Construction Services for the CDBG Street Reconstruction Project to M&J Excavation The City Clerk read the resolution. Mr. Beiter asked for a motion and second. Ms. Miele made the motion and it was seconded by Mr. Mackey. Mr. Scott. I have a resolution to award the CDBG project to M&J Excavation it was 59,000 to pave 7 streets throughout the city, I'll go over them. It's center street. High street to Morel avenue. Memorial avenue. Walnut street is to center street. Palmyra street. Park Avenue to Cramer court. And West Third Street. And Poplar street. Poplar Street to west federal avenue. And then we will do all downtown on Fourth Street. And going from mulberry all the way to Hepburn and jump over Market Street because it's that's a PennDOT highway. And we received four bids. This is the lowest responsible bid. It was a good bid, I was surprised they asked for the prices being low and steady. So we are very happy with it. M&J is from over in western [inaudible] county they do a lot of work that way. And I checked with the references and checked with the consultant engineer and they said they work with them and they do good work. And I don't have concerns there And this is funded by CDBG. Community development block grant funds. Ms. Miele. Um, so this is do we -- we don't have liquid feels or other money involved in the paving project this year? Mr. Scott That's a separate contract coming out real soon Ms. Miele: What additional funding did we fund for thrive paving budget? Seems to me it was less than usual. Mr. Scott This is an additional this year, the CDBG. We don't usually do that. So that's new. It will be over $1 million of paving, $1.2 million this combined with the liquid fuels it will be a lot Ms. Miele It was 600,000 yet. Mr. Scott On liquid fuels. Yeah Ms. Miele: Good. That's good. Thanks for doing your leg work top company, especially since we haven't seen this before. We appreciate it. Dr. Yoder I am really happy to see a few streets of Newberry on here. I say that because I was over there a couple weekends ago for their clean up. And we were on some side streets and. I recognize there's a number of pocket ins the city where side streets are not caught up to where we want them to be but I found some of those in Newberry to be notable. Within that category. So happy to see that. I hope to see more on the next pave paving contract, anything we can do to maybe make some head way on the West end of town I think would be very much appreciated. And good for that community. I know you do. It's not a criticism to you by any means and it stuck out to me while I was over there and seemed important to relay that for what tart worth. And not a criticism of anybody or you. And we try to spread it out and we try to keep up the best we can. I think we generally do a good job but some reflective feedback. Thanks for what you are doing, Bill. A question for myself, if I MRI, with 2 paving on Fourth Street to market you mentioned it's a PennDOT road. >> More street is Fourth Street is our street. And we are skipping over Market Street by we are doing all of four street from mulberry down to Hepburn. Ms. Miele I thought Fourth Street was a state. Mr. Scott West of come bell on Fourth Street is Ben dot. East of Campbell on Third Street is PennDOT. Ms. Miele It switches over at Campbell Street. I'm wondering how PennDOT was able to rip out the trees on Newberry. Mr. Scott We want to get this done before the Little League parade downtown that's another challenge. . The resolution was carried with six yes roll call votes. The vote was 6 to o All were in favor. Dr. Yoder voted yes, Mr. Mackey voted yes, , Mr. Dussinger voted yes, Ms. Miele voted yes, Mr. Pulizzi voted yes, and Mr. Beiter voted yes. Mr. Milliken was absent. Resolution # 10060 Resolution Authorizing Agreement Between the City of Williamsport & STEP, Inc. for HOME Funded Owner Developer Homeownership Project The City Clerk read the resolution. Mr. Beiter asked for a motion and second. Dr. Yoder made the motion and it was seconded by Mr. Mackey. Mr. Daily We are joined by STEP through Zoom. And we are speak seeking to enter is City of Williamsport with a homeowner agreement with STEP to implement our owner or homeowner rehab or acquisition rehab program so the project here would be STEP would be working with the city to acquire homes. On the open market and rehabilitate them and get them in the hands of perspective homeowners throughout the city at a affordable rate.S that program we have not run before but through our consultation with our consultants we were able to get great feedback from other third class cities in Pennsylvania who run similar programs. The it's thing that addresses two issues that I know are key to what we are trying to accomplish here, which is remediate plight. This allows us to be proactive by address addresses blight by addressing these homes before they run through an area where we have to run them through plighted properties or the redevelopment authority. And it helps increase homeownership throughout the city and I a uh allow us to be particular in the neighborhoods we target these homes for. If there's questions I mean happy to answer. And Rochelle, if you want to do a brief summary of what you guys will be doing on your end, that would be wonderful as well. Yes, hello council, Rachelle and, President and CEO at STEP. And thank you for having me today. This is a project that's been on the books at STEP for a quite a while. And we are excited to work with a city on this project. Which will really kind of showcase we've been doing a lot of work with rehab for the last actually over 20 years within Lycoming and Clinton county. And this is the first major project we are looking at the in City of Williamsport. So we appreciate the partnership to do more rehabilitation work within the city. And see this as just the beginning of a great relationship to really continue what we have on and we are doing within many of the communities throughout the bicounty area. This particular program like Austin said will look at moving houses back to that habitability and focusing on homeownership, affordable homeownership for individual who is purchased the homes. So really excited about partners with the planning can and community development department. And the City Council to move this forward. Happy to take any questions. Mr. Beiter : Are there any questions from members of council? Ms. Miele: Not a question. This is very exciting. We thank you guys for putting this together. I'm glad it will take a certain amount of leg work off the city and also enable our citizens in the city to take advantage of STEP's expertise so thank you. Mr. Beiter : It's great to see us partnering with organizations that are located within the city that are specialists in this kind of stuff. So. Rochelle, Yes, we agree. I've been at STEP for 15 years. And we always did so much work with all the other bureaus within the City of Lockhaven and the city and county areas so excited to be doing work directly within the community that we are a major employer in. that we have a lot of properties in. And yeah. So it's really exciting. And like I said, I think this is just the beginning of a great relationship. So thank you very much. Mr. Beiter : Wonderful, thank you as well. Seeing and hearing nothing else from members of council. Mrs. Frank. . The resolution was carried with six yes roll call votes. The vote was 6 to o All were in favor. Dr. Yoder voted yes, Mr. Mackey voted yes, Mr. Dussinger voted yes, Ms. Miele voted yes, Mr. Pulizzi voted yes, and Mr. Beiter voted yes. Mr. Milliken was absent Resolution # 10063 Resolution Awarding the Aggregate Bids for the City of Williamsport The City Clerk read the resolution. Mr. Beiter asked for a motion and second. Mr. Mackey made the motion and it was seconded by Dr. Yoder. Mr. Livermore stated this is a standard resolution that is done yearly. City Council has no questions.so Mr. Beiter asked for a vote. . The resolution was carried with six yes roll call votes. The vote was 6 to o All were in favor. Dr. Yoder voted yes, Mr. Mackey voted yes, Mr. Dussinger voted yes, Ms. Miele voted yes, Mr. Pulizzi voted yes, and Mr. Beiter voted yes. Mr. Milliken was absent Resolution #10061 Resolution Approving a MOA between the City of W|illiamsp0ort & AFSCME Council The City Clerk read the resolution. Mr. Beiter asked for a motion and second. Mr. Mackey made the motion and it was seconded by Dr. Yoder. Mayor Slaughter . What you have before you is Public Works and city hall union agreements. Vice President Pulizzi was part of the -- was the council rep on the negotiability’s team as he's been for the other contracts. We negotiated back and forth with AFSCME. And came to the agreement that's in front of you this evening. It's a 4-year agreement ending in I believe 2031. I have it in front of me A 4-year agreement. And it was good. We had a number of conversations back and forth with AFSCME. And we feel that both sides negotiated in good faith. And we both ended with this agreement. And felt good about it. So I want to also thank AFSCME for their work negotiating with us as well- as well. And I'll turn it back over to you, President Beiter Mr. Beiter: I'll turn it directly to Vice President Pulizzi. He did the bulk of the work obviously from the council side as the representative and negotiation. So if there's anything he would like to add? Mr. Pulizzi The Mayor pretty much hit the nail on the head. We had a quite a bit of back and forth. It wasn't easy. I would say at times it was tense and arduous but anything worth doing is not easy. So it was necessary. And I'm happy with the contract that we have. And I also wanted to extended a thank you to the representatives of AFSCME but also to the members of the union itself. And to Mr. Livermore with streets and parks for making sure this got done in a timely manner so I think it will be the best for us. Mr. Beiter: Any questions from other members of council regarding the contract? Seeing and hearing none, Mrs. Frank. . . The resolution was carried with six yes roll call votes. The vote was 6 to o All were in favor. Dr. Yoder voted yes, Mr. Mackey voted yes, Mr. Dussinger voted yes, Ms. Miele voted yes, Mr. Pulizzi voted yes, and Mr. Beiter voted yes. Mr. Milliken was absent Resolution #10062 Resolution Approving an Agreement Between the City of Williamsport & Mosco Lighting The City Clerk read the resolution. Mr. Beiter asked for a motion and second. Mr. Mackey made the motion and it was seconded by Dr. Yoder. Mr. Livermore . What you have before you is awarding construction services for Bowman Field project in the amount of $1,724,200 to replace the right lights at Bowman Field. A little bit of why we ended up in this situation. So about 3 weeks ago, I had a call from an individual over there that found some bolts on the ground. Upon further investigation, the Western side of the on the third base side on the western side the lights sheered off bolts. And pretty much deemed that to be unsafe. I had an inspector come in and look at that poll pole. Further on investigation we looked a at that other pole, it ended up being rusted as well. It was on the brink of coming down and myself and the Mayor made the decision to remove the poles for safety issues. This is where we are at with this. The Musco is willing to work with us to get up new lights as quickly as possible. They gave us two different options of payment methods. One option at $500,000 starting the project. As I give them potential go ahead tomorrow. The next is a $500,000 payment in November. And a remaining balance due January 1st. Payment 2 option would be 1/2 million due upon start and 1/2 again in November. And 377600 in July of next year and 3 p 7,600 in 2028 but option 2 it will be $33,000 more because of how long we pay it back. This company is costar's contract so they fit all our bidding thresholds. Any questions? Mr. Beiter : Questions from members of council? I can think of one. How is this going to be paid for? It's a very big expense. Ms. Miele: Huge. One that's not in the budget. Mr. Livermore > So a couple things to note. Representative Flick pursued $500,000 in state funding for this project. That we expect to be awarded any day now. We were just wait for the official paperwork on that. The city received a $750,000 sports marketing grant to do improvements at Bowman Field. And there were significant improvements made but there's $230,000 remain flag that grant. So rather pursue the last few items on the list we planned to do our plan is to reallocate those funds because of this emergency. And the funds that remain that's $893,000 committed to the $1.7 million project. It's my understanding there's some additional conversations going on with representative Flick and potentially as far as all the way up to the governor's office that are going very positive. I haven't heard of any commitments from those conversations. But as a back up to those conversations, the department of community and economic development has some program income from an old housing and redevelopment assistance program grant we received in the 90s. And that program income has very specific eligibility guidelines. Of which I have here. And this project would be eligible. So if the funding from the legislators that's being discussed right now or future sports tourism and marketing funding is not available, and we expect it to be, we can tap into this program income to make sure we can meet the expectations of the contract that's in front of you. Ms. Miele : This program income I presume, Val, is what we were hoping to use to construct a home loan program. Mr. Livermore It is not. No. It is not our HUD home program income. It is from a DC and D project in the 90s that was redevelopment assistance program. Actually there were a affordable housing apartments built in the city. And as part of that, the city attached a mortgage to that project. So that developer has been paying the city back since then. Ms. Miele Okay. We have other plans for this funding? We were working on other plans for this funding? Mr. Livermore There are other things we could absolutely do with this funding, yes Ms. Miele: Wanted to make sure when you said it was limited in potential it wasn't something where we couldn't literally spend it elsewhere. Mr. Livermore No, we are able to spend it elsewhere. And that's why we are seek seeking this legislative funding in hopes we can use that instead of tapping into this program income. But it is eligible, it is an eligible expense. We checked all the program guidelines and checked with our consultant about that. It is available. But we are certainly using it as our last option. We've been successful with other sports marketing and tourism grants and other earmarks for this seems to about priority to keep the cross cutters up and running. So we are willing to offer it as an option for this project. Ms. Miele: I'm assuming the light -- this is not a question for you, Valerie , sorry but thank you for the clarification on that. I'm assuming the lighting that we are installing the caliber of lighting required by Major League Baseball? Mr. Livermore It's not -- -- it's up to Major League Baseball standards. It's not so much required. I guess -- Ms. Miele: They've been bringing in their own lighting, correct? Mr. Livermore They won't have to anymore. Ms. Miele: Got it. I think that's worthy of note. Final question. Do we need to make the decision about how we are paying for these when we sign the contract tomorrow? Or can we make that decision down the road? Mr. Livermore I don't think it's -- we don't have to have our funding sources for November set tomorrow. Like Valerie said we have 1/2 million to get going and the 293,000 left in that grant to get us doing going. And we have until November to get the next funding source of 1/2 million. Ms. Miele: Got it. And we got that funding lined up if we need it. And hope we don't. Thank you, Scott, I'll yield to somebody else to start asking some questions. Mr. Yoder: Liz, I mean, I appreciate you asking the question and bringing that up. To be candid it's in the back of my mind. As uncomfortable I am approving this without everything lined up, I don't know that we got much choice. I don't want to put the cross cutters in a bind. I appreciate what they bring to the community when you think about having a location for people to gather to build community, that thing. They do a lot in that regard. And we are fortunate for it. So I think this is one of those exceptions that we can probably stick our necks out here and think through it. I'll make a note about costars. I've been a little critical of it in the past. And I still remain. Buts that good example where it works. In three weeks, we figured out a solution. And we did it in a fairly fiscally responsible way through that costars program. Right? I don't think we would ever do this but in future when we can competitively bid we should especially at this value. But I feel confidence in you, Scott. Any way a note on that. And just appreciate you jumping in here, Scott. And you grind, you work hard. This is a big one Mr. Yoder Appreciate you getting your hands dirty and figuring this out. Mr. Livermore This ain't the perfect scenario on anything but we had a emergency three weeks ago on our hands and the cutters season is right around the corner and in order to get them up and running this is -- and Musco for them once I made the phone call they were here within 3 days checking things out and the poles were down. And they had a crane in here and everything they brought in from Virginia. And they moved quick to get the safely issue get taken care of incompetent. And then here's the options to help out the city the best we can. Mr. Yoder: I will also say look when you look at partners in the community and in the region, and trying to figure something out for support in this field in cross cut experts we have our hands dirty and trying to figure something out in collaboration with the cross cutters and our state legislators have come to the table in support of that. When we think of funding I'll be the one to say I think there's an easy ask of MLB to help out. They benefit in this. They've been at the table in the past and have publicly told me in prior meetings when I was in your Chair, Eric, about how much they value the partnership. This is a really great opportunity to deepen this. And I hope they do. Mr. Livermore And talking to the Mayor, he had reached out to MLB. I don't know the conversation back and forth but I know they are aware of the situation and I think they are seeing what they are able to help with. But I but I don't know what that is Mr. Yoder Hopefully they can help and help sooner than late export if there's never a ask, that this one, MLB, I hope you can help us here. Mr. Mackey, : Obviously I will second that and second Councilman Yoder's thoughtless a the cross cutters and obviously this is something that needs to be done because of what the cross cutters brings to the community. Mr. Livermore, Couple things. That's major league level lighting this is lighting at some point here in the future major league baseball is going to come to us and say we needed to do this anyway for this MLB classic to continue. So yes, should Major League Baseball help us pay for this? Absolutely. Mr. Mackey I would also the administration to reach out to Little League international. Who else benefits from this game? Little League does. This game is a 3-hour commercial for Little League baseball. Mr. Livermore Talking he has did that part but I don't know the conversation Mr. Mackey : I would publicly ask Little League baseball to reach out, talk to somebody. Let's figure out how they may be able to help financially with these lights. I think there's one other thing that we are not talking about. It is the cross cutters schedule specifically. They start June 2nd. Those games there's it's my understanding this lighting will definitely not be done by June 2nd so we are going to have to bring in temporary lighting for this three games because they cannot play will it's a day game or not they cannot play without lights. That's just how it is. You can't have baseball players out there if it gets overcast, whatever it is. So there's a cost to that. So where's that money coming from? And what kind of guarantee do we have that the lights will be ready by I believe June 12th is their next -- Mr. Livermore, I haven't got a guarantee. I had discussions with Musco and the contractors that they are going to do everything they can to make it happen by the first pitch. Until we give them the go ahead and they start getting things ordered and seeing how fast things come in, they won't tell me. But they are more prone to the one on the 12th versus the 2nd because of the time constraints. But they are not giving me a time other than the 12th right now. They are not throwing the second out until we get going Mr. Mackey: Sure but we do need temporary lighting for the first throw games. How are we figuring that out? Major League Baseball is saving money now because they don't have to bring in lights is that something in the interim they can help us out with that $140,000 they would be spending on temporary lighting for the MLB classic they won't be spending now they can help us out now with this cost? Mr. Livermore I have not looked in -- we have some representatives from cross cutters here. Doug, I think you had some discussions on potential ideas on if this doesn't happen? Mr. Doug Estes Good evening members of council. We had discussions with Musco to bring in temporary lights and basically all you have to do is sign an agreement. It's 120k for those three games. are in the same position I think the city is in trying to figure out how to pay for that. And our goal ultimately is to have a discussion with the Mayor regarding that as soon as this project is given the get-go. Obviously if this project does not get the get-go we are in basically violation, we cannot play our season. So according to our lease I think it's important that these lights get in as soon as possible. But again, we are trying to figure it out. We have some ideas. And I would like to have a meeting with the Mayor to discuss them further. Before bringing it to council. > Thank you for all the behind-the-scenes work you guys have been doing to try to figure this out as well. And this goes Liz, and stop me if I'm speaking out of turn here. When you were asking Scott you were saying if we approve this tonight we also need to decide which of the two options Ms. Miele: That's what I was after. Mr. Mackey: Right. Do we need to decide option A or B tonight? Ms. Miele In terms of payment plans we don't need to isolate which payment plan we are using? Mr. White I don't think it matters if we decide option 1, 1 or 2. And 2 is more money and we add a year. And the up front cost is 1/2 million up front stays the same Mr. Mackey : That's the important part. And to that point too, I would like to say publicly thank you for Musco Lighting for working with us like that. I think they also understand the importance of this. So I don't know if there's anything here from Musco Lighting or not but thank you for that. That's all I got. Mr. Beiter Austin, if I could ask you a procedural question regarding option 1 or 2. If we don't decide tonight are we going to having took ling to go back and amend that contract to figure out how that money will be spent when it will be spent? That's fine. It's not that big of a deal to go back and do . > It's -- it reads the way I would approach it you could always have a discussion about it. And at a upcoming council meeting and if at that time the administration says yeah we should go with option and you all want to go with option 2, you can make a motion to approve it as amended. So I think it's something we can cover quickly. Mr. White The way it reads to me we are electing option 1 because of how it's written. If you think option 2 after the fact if it's better then we can change it. But if option 1 is what you want to do I think you are good to go with how this is written. Right now it's option 1. If you decided that you wanted to pursue option 2 you could just have it at a future council meeting. Mr. Beiter That's fine. Wanted to make sure. If it came back up understood why. Mr. Dussinger: I'm assuming these lights will be more energy efficient than what was ripped out. Have we looked into programs for rebaits? Mr. Livermore I haven't got that far. They are more energy efficient. I don't know the savings. I know in the month of August, I think the cross cutters bill is usually around 5,000, $5,500 mark per month. And I want going to through numbers out but probably 40% savings by using these styles of lights and once I find out that info, I can let everybody no Mr. Dussinger: I don't know if PPNL had rebates or for this. Maybe, I have to look into it. Ms. Miele: Either way the baseline debate is we needed the freaking lights. Mr. Livermore That's all a moot point. And a curiosity question now because I don't think we are objectively against this for the needs it provides to all parties involved but the lights, LED lights. All the new styles of lights are downward projection so you don't get a lot of light pollution off them as you do the older lights. Are you going to have the ability to do like Little League does during their 7th inning stretch where you can do – ➢ It does come with preset light shows the ability. Mr. Livermore That will be a benefit to the cross cutters to have more of an attraction as guests come to the ballpark maybe instead of a firework night. Something like that. And ultimately what we have here in Williamsport is a Major League Baseball caliber facility for a minor league team that you can go to and not pay major league prices at so I encourage everybody to get out there as much as you can and support the great organization they are. The timing is unfortunate. It needed to happen but just had to happen right now I guess is the bad part. > Rather happen this way than some catastrophic way. Mr. Beiter: Anything else from members of council? Seeing and hearing none, Mrs. Frank. The resolution was carried with six yes roll call votes. The vote was 6 to o All were in favor. Dr. Yoder voted yes, Mr. Mackey voted yes, Mr. Dussinger voted yes, Ms. Miele voted yes, Mr. Pulizzi voted yes, and Mr. Beiter voted yes. Mr. Milliken was absent Accept for filing Veteran’s Memorial Park minutes Nov. 25 Controller’s Report 02/26 Mr. Beiter asked for a motion and second to accept these for filing. Mr. Mackey made the motion and it was seconded by Mr. Pulizzi. The Minutes were accepted for filing with six yes roll call votes. The vote was 6 to o All were in favor. Dr. Yoder voted yes, Mr. Mackey voted yes, Mr. Dussinger voted yes, Ms. Miele voted yes, Mr. Pulizzi voted yes, and Mr. Beiter voted yes. Mr. Milliken was absent Announcements The next regularly scheduled City Council meeting will be held on Thursday, May 14, 2026 at 7:00 PM, Trade & Transit II 144 West Third St, 3rd floor, Williamsport, PA. Upcoming Meetings: Monday, May 4 12:00 PM Planning Commission Tuesday, May 12 1:00 PM Committee of the Whole Wednesday, May 13 3:30 PM O&E Pension Thursday, May 14 7:00 PM City Council Meeting Comments: a. Members of the Public Scott Miller 822 Tucker street, Williamsport. You all have money for buys and repairing the dilapidated houses but you don't have money and funding and resources the staff to keep my house from becoming dilapidated. Interesting. Very interesting. I guess I should have just let my house fall down into a pile of crap. And Chief, I wish we were having the fireworks this year. I don't know all the stuff going on about it because I don't get the paper anymore. But I really always enjoyed seeing the fireworks. Have a great evening. > Thank you, Mr. Miller. Other comments from members of the public? Comments from members of council? Mr. Mackey  b. Council Comments Mr. Mackey: Welcome aboard to Councilman Dussinger, nice job tonight, first meeting. Mr. Dussinger: Thank you. Thank you. c. Administration d. News Media Adjournment Meeting adjourned upon motion by Mr. Pulizzi and a seconded by Mr. Milliken Meeting adjourned 8:00 PM with unanimous ayes. Submitted by: Janice M. Frank City Clerk