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Council OKs legislation despite request for delay

Votes despite request for delay due to weather

YOUNGSTOWN — City council approved ordinances for various improvement projects, but not without some issues.

Councilwoman Samantha Turner, D-3rd Ward, wanted council to move six pieces of legislation on Wednesday to committee and delay votes.

That’s because she was unable to get out of her driveway Tuesday for a finance committee meeting in which the proposals were discussed before council’s vote.

Turner said her street, like several others in the city, went unplowed until Wednesday.

“Through no fault of my own, I was unable to attend the finance committee,” she said. “I’m not going to say yes to something I’m not familiar with.”

But Turner’s request to postpone the votes failed to get approval from any of the other council members.

“The majority of the body felt there was sufficient time to discuss” the legislation, Councilman Mike Ray, D-4th Ward and president pro-tem, said. “We get the agenda early. There’s time to go to department heads and get information before the meeting. A majority was comfortable and we moved forward.”

Because Councilman Jimmy Hughes, D-2nd Ward, was late to Wednesday’s meeting — and also said he couldn’t get out of his driveway Tuesday because of unplowed roads — most of the legislation was approved by a 5-1 vote.

Hughes arrived just in time to vote in favor of a plan to allow the board of control to spend up to $84,400 for right-of-way purchases of several properties along Mahoning Avenue for new traffic lights at 10 intersections. That proposal passed 6-1.

Turner and Hughes said the city needs to do a better job plowing roads, particularly side streets.

It wasn’t until Wednesday that the side streets were plowed by the city’s street department. The snowstorm began Sunday with the department concentrating on the main roads and highways.

Charles Shasho, deputy director of public works, defended the street department saying that unlike surrounding townships, the city is responsible for all of the roads and highways in its boundaries.

Council also voted to pay $57,945 to FirstEnergy to remove steel light posts and fixtures along Front Street from South Avenue to Marshall Street.

The city will install new decorative LED lights along that street that it will own as part of a major improvement project.

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