EAST LIVERPOOL — The final meeting of the year for the East Liverpool City Council held Monday night was an emotional one as it was the final meeting for two long-term council members, Fred Rayl and Scott Barrett, who due to retirement reasons did not seek re-election.

City officials and fellow council members expressed their thanks to Rayl and Barrett for their years of service and always being there when needed, and wished them both good luck and the best in their future endeavors.

Rayl, who was the chairman for the Finance Committee, has passed the role of chair on to Council Member Brian Kerr, who announced he will continue to hold committee meetings at the time Rayl held them, with the next one being held on Dec. 30 at 3 p.m. in council chambers.

Council Clerk Pat Scafide is not seeking reappointment, and a search is underway for his replacement. Applications for the council clerk position are being accepted at the mayor’s office through 4:30 p.m. Dec. 31.

Council President John Torma cautioned that anyone interested in the council clerk position must be ready to step into the position immediately, as the interviews and decision on who to put in that spot will be made immediately prior to the Jan. 5 council meeting and they will have to fill the position at that meeting.

Safety Service Director Bill Jones provided an update on the flooding issue on East 8th Street behind Hissam’s and said they are looking at two phases for that. He said there is a company coming in on Thursday, depending on the weather, and they are looking at putting in a retaining wall to hold back the hillside from slipping any further. Once that is in, they will address the storm water issue.

“The biggest issue is holding that hillside back and preventing it from continuing to slip,” Jones said.

Jones said the city has three trucks ready for snow plowing. He also noted the department was short of people, and the big thing was getting people in the trucks. He also said that they have more trucks than employees right now and finding people was going to be pretty tough with the wages the city pays. A test was recently given and only one person passed and it was for a mechanics position. The city is short of two employees and is in need of drivers with a CDL-B.

During the public portion of the meeting, a resident addressed the homelessness issue in the city and asked where the compassion in the city was and why the empty buildings in the city could not be used as shelters.

Mayor Bobby Smith addressed the resident in his report to council, saying the city is full of compassionate people who do what they can, but they cannot even get the owners to maintain the buildings and the city cannot force the owners of the buildings into making them into homeless shelters.

Smith also said that the homelessness problem wasn’t just an East Liverpool problem, but a worldwide one. He also said the city has seven subsidized housing properties in which 82% of the calls received by the police department come from. He told her that she was wrong about the lack of compassion, but the city can’t solve the world’s problems, and this problem is everywhere.

“A lot of these people aren’t from East Liverpool. We can’t take care of everybody that comes here; no community can do that,” Smith said. “But we do have a lot of compassion.”

Smith also said people want to take care of the problem, but they also want to revitalize the town and make it more than just shelters and subsidized housing. He noted that when 73% of the population doesn’t pay taxes, that limits the amount of help available and there is more involved in shelters then what people realize.

The mayor invited her to come to his office during office hours and further discuss it with him, and she said she would.

Smith said he posted to social media a warning about the people going around posting signs on poles that they buy houses and that they were predatory buyers.

Smith went to Youngstown to meet with the Youngstown Development Corporation to see what they do when they revitalize neighborhoods and was impressed with what he saw and intends to look further into it.

“Something needs to be done with the planning director position previously held by Bill Cowan, and the city needs to do something with the zoning position; it needs to be filled quickly as well,” Smith said. “There is always something going on with zoning.”

The city is still seeking donations for the bike trail. Smith said if the city can come up with $185,000 in donations, they can get the millions of dollars of funding available for it. Work has begun clearing the trail.

Smith noted that he wanted to give a shout out to the water department employees who have been out daily for the past couple of weeks dealing with water line breaks caused by the old pipes.

Council members unanimously approved two resolutions and six ordinances.

Resolutions included the adoption of the Columbiana County Hazard Mitigation Plan and authorizing the mayor to enter into a contract with the Auditor of State for the GAAP Audit for the year ending 2025. This audit is a state requirement, and it will cost the city $24,800.

Ordinances included making temporary appropriations for the current expenditures for the city from Jan. 1 through March 31; authorizing the city auditor to pay certain vendors; amending the budget ordinance to adjust appropriations; amending an ordinance for the wages and benefits of non-union city employees and two ordinances authorizing the Board of Public Utilities to apply for, accept and enter into agreements for the planning of the East Liverpool Wastewater System Project and the planning of East Liverpool Water System Project between the city and the Ohio Water Development Authority.

Rayl noted that the ordinance for the temporary appropriations (temporary budget) for Jan. 1 through March 31 was needed because Council approved this budget at the November council meeting, but according to the city auditor the budget was submitted to the county auditor and was informed that there were two minor errors and that City Auditor Marilyn Bosco also said that the county has changed their accounting system and she corrected this version of the temporary budget which needed to be voted on due to the corrections.

The ordinance regarding the wages and benefits of non-union employees is being amended to allow the Board of Public Utilities to determine the wages and benefits of the non-union employees instead of using an ordinance previous passed by council which set the wages and benefits for the non-union employees for the water and waste departments only.

Rayl said it has been difficult to keep those positions functional because the prevailing wage in the area is higher, and the city has already lost employees in these departments to other communities.

“If we hope to maintain these enterprises as our own, we must necessitate BPU’s (Board of Public Utilities) request,” Rayl said. “If we were to lose ownership of these systems the next owner will have no reservations about paying these positions nor what our citizens of East Liverpool will have to be charged.”

All legislation was passed on first reading with suspended rules.

The East Liverpool City Council meets the first Monday of each month at 6 p.m. in council chambers at East Liverpool City Hall. The next regular meeting is scheduled for Jan. 5.