YOUNGSTOWN — City council finally gave approval to the board of control to spend up to $65,000 for a feasibility study for a city-run ambulance service, a review of city fire station locations and where to put a possible safety-service complex.
It took seven attempts, but council voted 6-1 Wednesday to move ahead with the effort that was first introduced nine months ago for just an ambulance feasibility study.
Despite the repeated rejections and postponements since February, the administration had already set Nov. 15 as the deadline for requests for proposals for the study with Law Director Jeff Limbian saying council action isn’t needed to seek them.
The legislation in front of council Wednesday was identical to one that it failed to pass at its last meeting on Oct. 18.
That proposal sought to hire Public Consulting Group LLC of Boston for the study. But a majority of council wanted to amend it to advertise for the lowest and best proposal.
An attempt at the Oct. 18 meeting to amend it as an emergency measure failed because two councilmen — Jimmy Hughes, D-2nd Ward, and Pat Kelly, D-5th Ward — voted no. The amendment needed support from at least six of council’s seven members.
Hughes opposes the study, saying it is too late as the city locked itself into a three-year agreement Dec. 16 to pay $3.968 million over that time to Emergency Medical Transport for ambulance service using American Rescue Plan money with a two-year renewal option. Hughes opposed that contract.
Kelly didn’t favor paying for an ambulance study because the firefighters union’s international has offered to do one at no cost. But Limbian and fire Chief Barry Finley said in the past that the union’s proposal wouldn’t be objective.
Kelly switched his vote in favor of seeking proposals saying the board of control would go with the firefighters union because it will submit a plan at no cost to the city.
“Why spend $65,000?” he said. “But I’m trying to be fair to everybody.”
Finley said at a June 22 council safety committee meeting that it is not financially feasible for the city to operate its own ambulance service, but he would abide by the study’s results.
City council first discussed a study in February and has referred the issue to its safety committee three times, voted down two $50,000 proposals — to pay that amount to Public Consulting on June 5 and to seek a firm for the work at the Oct. 18 meeting — and didn’t have enough votes to amend the $65,000 proposal, also at the Oct. 18 meeting.
The funding grew from $50,000 to $65,000 when council members asked that the study include an examination of city fire station locations in case there needs to be consolidation and a safety-service complex on the North Side, near the Liberty border, that was first proposed in February.
Strollo Architects were hired to conduct two $24,000 studies in February to do predesign, site planning and budget projections to build a safety-services building at what was known as the Wick Six site, a group of new car dealerships that left the North Side location in the 1980s and early 1990s as the area deteriorated.
Those studies were supposed to take three to four months to complete. The Vindicator has made numerous public records requests for those studies to the city law department, which hasn’t provided them.
ROOF WORK
Council also voted to permit the board of control to spend up to $2 million to hire a contractor to repair the city-owned Covelli Centre roof and up to $300,000 to do the same at the city’s traffic sign and signal shop.
Council on Sept. 20 rejected a no-bid contract, totaling $2 million, for Simon Roofing of Youngstown to do both jobs with $1.7 million for the Covelli Centre and $300,000 for the traffic sign and signal shop.
The rejected legislation, sponsored by Mayor Jamael Tito Brown, referred to the repairs as emergencies even though the work to the center would not start until next spring.
Council members questioned how that constituted an emergency when the work wouldn’t begin for months.
Charles Shasho, deputy director of public works, said at the Sept. 20 meeting that seeking formal requests for the work will delay the project, possibly into the summer and could cause further damage to the center.
But Shasho said Wednesday that both roof projects should start in the spring and possibly sooner. He said he didn’t know how long the work would take to complete.
The change from the estimated $1.7 million for the center’s roof to $2 million is because there may be “more unknowns” with a contractor other than Simon, Shasho said.