YOUNGSTOWN — Members of Youngstown City Council peppered the administration with questions and criticism about a request to spend $1.95 million for sanitary sewer improvements for an industrial park site and then refused to consider it.

Council members on Wednesday repeatedly expressed skepticism about the plan during a finance committee meeting before the legislative body met.

DeMaine Kitchen, community planning and economic development department director, said the administration doesn’t have an end user for the site on Exal Court in the Salt Springs Road Business Park and the sewer work would make it “shovel-ready” for a potential developer.

“We’re preparing it for whoever it may potentially be,” Kitchen said.

Councilman Mike Ray, D-4th Ward, said, “I would like to see a plan or some strategy for what we’re doing if we’re going to allocate $2 million.”

Councilman Jimmy Hughes, D-2nd Ward, said: “My problem is it’s $2 million and you say you don’t have anybody to move on the piece of property. You want to spend $2 million for a pipe in the ground and hope somebody comes thinking it’s important. You must have a crystal ball to pick this site. I can’t understand why this site and not every site.”

Councilman Julius Oliver, D-1st Ward, said: “There’s a lot of skepticism” with this. “It’s a lot of money to spend for something that seems like (it) is causing some confusion.”

Oliver questioned if there is a developer for the site or if the administration wants to spend $1.95 million on just a potential one.

Kitchen said the city’s “overall strategy is to acquire land to prepare as much land as possible” for development because “when we get calls for shovel-ready sites, we don’t have them.”

Kitchen reiterated that the city doesn’t “have a project in mind” for this location.

Toward the end of the discussion, Kitchen said: “We don’t have to spend all night on it,” and told council to either support it or move it to committee for further discussion.

“We said what our plan is and you can consider it and we’ll live with whatever the decision is.”

Council chose to refer it to its community planning and economic development committee for additional discussion.

During the conversation, water came out of the ceiling of the council caucus room. The finance committee had a brief recess as the area was cleaned up. It also ended the discussion on the proposal.

The objections from council weren’t surprising as three of them told The Vindicator last week that they knew nothing about this proposal.

The location, which is 12-13 acres, is on Exal Court behind the current home of Youngstown Tool & Die.

Even if council wanted to vote for the $1.95 million project, it didn’t have enough members in attendance at Wednesday’s meeting to pass it by emergency.

ABSENCES

Councilwomen Samantha Turner, D-3rd Ward, and Amber White, I-7th Ward, didn’t attend Wednesday’s meeting. Council gave the rest of the items on its agenda a first reading as it needs approval from at least six of its seven members to pass legislation by emergency measure.

Since June, Turner has missed six of the 18 council meetings held while White has been absent for five of them, according to council minutes.

There is no penalty for members failing to attend council meetings.

Council’s next scheduled meeting is May 20. It typically meets on the first and third Wednesdays of each month, except during its summer recess. Council also doesn’t meet on the Wednesday after an election, which is why it doesn’t have a May 4 meeting. It will be more than a month before its members next gather unless a special meeting is called.

Among the items that received a first reading Wednesday was the authorization of a $64,329 payment to H&J Restoration Specialists of Poland, which had to repair a large section of bricks that fell off the exterior of the city-owned 20 Federal Place, a closed nine-story downtown building, and landed on the roof of a nearby structure. H&J also removed other loose bricks on the mothballed building that’s been closed for nearly four years and put up a protective covering.