YOUNGSTOWN – The city’s board of control approved $256,525.37 in emergency sewer work to three different companies for 11 projects.

The board voted 2-0 Thursday on each of the emergency project items. The board consists of Mayor Derrick McDowell, Finance Director Kyle Miasek and Law Director Adam Buente. Miasek was absent from Thursday’s meeting.

The payments were $140,850.84 to Marucci & Gaffney Excavating Co. of Youngstown for four projects, $80,124.90 to A.P. O’Horo Co. of Liberty for four projects and $35,549.63 to Utility Contracting Inc. of Youngstown for three projects.

“We have a lot of breaks in our sewer system and we don’t have the skill set to do it in-house,” said Charles Shasho, the city’s deputy director of public works.

The city often uses these three companies for emergency sewer repairs as they are available and reliable, Shasho said. While 11 projects were paid Thursday by the board of control, the work done was over a period of a few months, Shasho said.

“It depends on when they bill us,” he said. “We ask them to do the work, but we can’t control when they send the bills. Sometimes they’ll do two to three months of billing and sometimes it’s six months. These companies have been doing this work for us for decades.”

The most expensive work was $63,817.13 to Marucci & Gaffney for the emergency replacement of a sewer and manhole on Wychwood Drive.

Other work done by Marucci & Gaffney included the repair of a sanitary sewer line that caused a sinkhole on Dale Street, sinkhole and sanitary sewer repair along with catch basin replacement on Hilton Avenue, and manhole replacement work at Woodland Avenue and Hadnet Drive.

The A.P. O’Horo projects were to fix a collapsed sanitary sewer that caused a sinkhole at 430 W. Hylda Ave., fix a collapsed sanitary sewer that caused a sinkhole on Tacoma, two sinkholes repaired over a sanitary sewer line at 381 and 445 Camden Ave., and the repair of a sinkhole at 1301 Wilson Ave.

The Utility Contracting work included replacing a catch basin at 512 Clearmont Ave., repairing a sanitary sewer on Connecticut Avenue that caused a sinkhole, and repairing and raising a manhole on Wesley Avenue.

The board also voted 2-0 Thursday to increase the cost of renovating the second floor of city hall to $425,587. This increase was for an additional $32,641.

The project’s initial cost was $380,600.

The community planning and economic development department is relocating there from a smaller space on city hall’s fourth floor.

The location on the second floor has been vacant since 2018, when the clerk of courts moved to the city hall annex as part of the city court relocation project.