YOUNGSTOWN — City Council will consider Wednesday permitting the board of control to pay $272,000 to contractors hired to remove snow during the winter blizzards.

The legislation gives the board authority to waive formal bidding and pay contractors for emergency snow removal that was largely done in January.

“I was surprised at how low it is,” Charles Shasho, deputy director of public works, said of the cost. “Honestly, I was expecting it to be more with the equipment, dump trucks and manpower used. We knew the snow was coming, and we wanted to get it done as efficiently as possible, so we hired contractors to help us.”

About a half-dozen contractors helped with snow removal, Shasho said. They are companies that regularly do business with the city, he said, such as Marucci & Gaffney Excavating Co., A.P. O’Horo Co., S.E.T. Inc. and J.S. Bova Excavating.

If council approves the legislation Wednesday, Shasho said the board should authorize the payments at its next meeting on March 26.

“It’s money well spent,” Shasho said. “We are here to provide a service to the residents and that’s what we did.”

The city can typically handle snow removal with its street department staff, but when it gets close to a foot, which occurred Jan. 24-26, it need additional help, Shasho said.

“We coordinated with multiple departments and outside contractors,” he said. “The street department does the main roads, and everyone else takes care of the rest of the city, including downtown.”

In addition to the street department and contractors, the city’s parks and recreation, and wastewater departments helped with snow removal, Shasho said.

Mayor Derrick McDowell previously said he wanted to make sure people could drive on the city’s streets during the snowstorms — and it was going to cost money.

McDowell said earlier this month: “Some of you saw two pieces of farm equipment going down the street, pushing snow as if it was a field in Columbiana. But it was the streets of the city of Youngstown because we knew that if our response to that weather wasn’t immediate, wasn’t effective, that your jobs were at risk. Your ability to get out to work, your ability to get your children to where they needed to go was impacted.”

SPEED CAMERA MONEY

Council on Wednesday also will vote on spending $145,000 from a fund that holds fees paid by those cited for speeding in school zones. The speeders are caught by unstaffed cameras in school zones; violators pay civil penalties ranging from $100 to $150, depending on how fast they were driving.

Of the $145,000, $95,000 is the annual maintenance agreement the city has with the ShotSpotter program, which is technology that is able to detect and locate gunfire in real time; and $50,000 is for improvements and maintenance to the school zone flasher units, school zone signage, and repairs and maintenance for a mobile camera trailer.

The city collected $916,721 in fines during the 2024-25 school year on top of the $597,640 it received in 2023. Collections since the cameras were turned back on in August to the present weren’t available Friday, but the average collections in the 2024-25 school year exceeded $100,000 a month.

Of that $1,514,361 the city previously received from the camera citation fees, this is only the third and fourth times it will have spent the funds.

It paid $51,522 in December 2024 to Blue Line Solutions, the Chattanooga, Tennessee, company that runs the camera program, to purchase a surveillance trailer with two cameras. The city also paid $89,384 in December for the SpotShotter agreement. Council members had initially questioned the legality of using the speed camera money for that, but were assured by the city law department that it is an allowable use under state law.

The city’s problems spending the money stems from state law that heavily restricts how it can be used. It’s been left to the city law department to interpret the law on permissible allocations.

In December 2024, the city administration sought to spend $211,251 to purchase three SUVs for the city school district. But that was stopped by the law department after it determined it wasn’t permissible under state law.

At the same time, council voted to spend up to $56,000 of the speed camera money to buy three metal detectors the city would own and permit the school district to use when classes are in session. That purchase, which also raised questions, was never made.

The city gets 65% of the citation fees, with Blue Line keeping the remaining 35%.

Cameras are in use all school days from the time students head to class until 6 p.m. They are not used weekends, during the summer and on days when class is not in session.

During the two hours in the morning that children go to school, and the two hours when they leave, the speed limit in those zones is 20 mph. In between and after school ends, the speed limit is 25 and 35 mph depending on the location.

Motorists caught going at least 11 mph over the speed limit and up to 14 mph over it face a civil penalty of $100. Those going 15 to 20 mph over the limit face a $125 penalty and those traveling faster than 20 mph over the limit face a $150 penalty. They do not get points on their driving record for the citations.

Because they are citations, there is nothing the city can do to enforce collections. Blue Line could turn over the unpaid citations to a collection agency, but that is highly unlikely.

The collection rate for those issued citations in school zones on the cameras is about 40%.

GAS STATION GRANT

Council will consider Wednesday allowing the board of control to give a $100,000 grant for storm water improvements to Four Lane Quick Stop, which is investing $2 million for a new gas station/convenience store at 3827 Market St.

The business is relocating from a leased location across the street.

The new location, at Market Street and Midlothian Boulevard, would “transform a former vacant lot that serves as a gateway of a major commercial corridor,” according to council legislation.

At a November council committee meeting, there was a request for $185,000 for the business to use for underground storm water detention and the replacement of existing sidewalks at an estimated cost of $65,680.