YOUNGSTOWN — City council is expected Wednesday to approve an ordinance that establishes how a major project to keep wastewater from flowing into Mill Creek Park’s Lake Glacier will be funded.

The legislation appropriates $42,771,942 into a wastewater project expense fund with the city being reimbursed through the Ohio Environmental Protection Agency’s Ohio Water Pollution Control Loan Fund.

The state changed how it reimburses municipalities for such projects, which necessitates the city approving the ordinance.

The state EPA used to pay contractors directly and now reimburses municipalities to pay the contractors, said Charles Shasho, the city’s deputy director of public works.

“We’ll do monthly bills,” he said. “We’ll pay the contractor and then send it in and get reimbursed. That will occur over the life of the project.”

The city is borrowing the money from the state loan fund over a 30-year period with an interest rate of between 1% and 3%, based on when the funding is approved, Shasho said.

The project started Dec. 29 and is supposed to be finished no later than May 29, 2028, but Shasho said he expects it to be done in late 2027.

The interest starts accruing as soon as the city borrows it.

The city is still awaiting word on a requested $5 million Senate appropriation for this sewer interceptor project and has requested principal forgiveness on the loan from the state, Shasho said.

Marucci & Gaffney Excavating Co. of Youngstown is handling the two-phase project. The city’s board of control approved the $42,771,942 contract Oct. 9.

The work includes eliminating four sewer overflow lines on and near Lake Glacier and replacing about 8,000 to 9,000 linear feet of sewer lines that range in size from 36 to 60 inches with a new 96-inch sewer line. Park roads, trails and facilities near the lake will remain closed during the duration of the project.

The first part of the work is rehabilitating and repairing a sewer line from Belle Vista Avenue to Milton Avenue.

There will also be bridge work, river crossings, efforts to lower the lake and the relocation of utilities.

The work is part of a large wastewater improvement project being done in phases by the city as part of a 2014 federal consent decree.

The third and fourth phases of the park’s interceptor sewer project will be to Lake Cohasset and will eliminate 10 other sewer overflows.

That project is supposed to start in April 2028 and be finished by September 2032. When that occurs, roads, trails and facilities around Lake Cohasset will be closed during the duration of the project.

In addition to eliminating the sewer overflows at Mill Creek Park, the city made major improvements at its wastewater treatment plant.

It will also construct an 80-million-gallon-per-day wet weather facility. The city was initially supposed to build a facility that held 100 million gallons per day, but successfully negotiated with the federal government in court to reduce that amount.

The city plans to have all of the work done by Oct. 1, 2035.

ORDINANCES REVISITED

On Wednesday, city council will again attempt to pass two ordinances it failed to approve by emergency at its Dec. 17 meeting.

One would amend a contract with the Western Reserve Port Authority to seek buyers for a number of city-owned properties and the other would grant raises to 199 nonunion employees.

Council voted 5-1 Dec. 17 on a request by the administration to pass legislation by emergency to grant raises in 2026 of 4% plus $1 an hour to the nonunion employees, which includes department heads, non-management workers and those in the clerk of court and court bailiff’s office. Because the ordinance needed six votes to be approved via emergency, it only received a first reading at that meeting.

Councilwoman Samantha Turner, D-3rd Ward, voted against passing the ordinance by emergency with Councilwoman Amber White, I-7th Ward, absent.

Council can try again Wednesday to approve the raises by emergency, but if it can’t get six votes, it will have a second reading. Council typically passes legislation by emergency measure, but it can also approve it by having three separate readings at three different meetings with a simple majority vote needed during the final reading.

Council is down a member until at least its two scheduled meetings this month with the 6th Ward seat vacant because Anita Davis resigned to become council president. The Mahoning County Democratic Party’s central committee members from that ward plan to vote Jan. 26 on a successor.

The 4% raises for nonunion employees is the same increase given this year to those in the firefighters union and at least what the police patrol union, which rejected a fact-finder’s report with that percentage salary increase, will receive.

The $1-an-hour raise for the nonunion employees is designed to give them money in place of extra payments that go to certain unions for bonuses for hazardous duty, shift differential and uniform allowances, said Finance Director Kyle Miasek.

City council started giving the extra $1 in 2024.

The additional $1-an-hour equals $2,080 in annual additional pay.

Turner requested the WRPA contract receive a first reading at the Dec. 17 meeting, which occurred.

The WPRA legislation would permit the board of control to amend a contract to seek buyers for a number of city-owned properties, including the former Chill-Can plant site and the shuttered 20 Federal Place.

The city has had an agreement since June 17, 2020, with the WRPA to identify properties owned by the former available for “lease, sale, renovation or redevelopment and properties not owned by the city that could be obtained for the same purposes.”

The contract pays the WRPA 5% of the gross transaction price of any sales.

While the contract has been in place for more than five years, the WRPA hasn’t sold any city-owned properties to date.

The WRPA board voted Dec. 17, a few hours before city council met, to approve the contract amendment.

The WRPA has greater flexibility to sell the properties than the city, which has restrictions under state law.