mmaroney@sungazette.com
City Council’s Ad Hoc City Hall Committee met Tuesday and honed in on two final options to remain at the current City Hall or to renovate office space the city owns at Trade and Transit Centre I or II.
“I think we are making progress to the point of completion for the committee,” said Councilman Adam Yoder, its chairman.
Short of a funding plan, which is estimated to be $4 million to $5 million for either option, the committee has narrowed its intent to either make a decision on staying at City Hall or moving the administrative offices to one of the transit buildings, with the exception of the Williamsport Bureau of Police.
Dec 21, 2020
April 1 COVID-19 results in a postponed Blues Festival until June of 2021. The health risk and coordination precludes the organizers from holding the event in June at Hughesville at the Lycoming County Fairgrounds.
April 3 UPMC creates a potential vaccine for COVID-19, doctors there said. University of Pittsburgh School of Medicine and UPMC said the vaccine may be delivered by a dissolvable microneedle similar to a Band-Aid.
April 9 The Borough of Montgomery agreed to review becoming a sanctuary from what its officials call unconstitutional state and federal gun control laws.
April 10 Gov. Tom Wolf orders schools closed through the end of the academic year and superintendents say they are challenged to provide new instruction from kindergarten through 12th grades remotely.
mmaroney@sungazette.com
A four-year contract for the Williamsport Bureau of Police Lodge 29 union narrowly passed Thursday in a 4-3 vote by City Council.
The main discussion point was the unionized police officers’ contract including raises of 1 percent next year, 2 percent the following year, 2 percent the year after and 3 percent in the final year. Concessions were made to employee contribution on health insurance, Damon R. Hagan, city police chief said. A copy of the contract was requested by the Sun-Gazette and was not provided as of press time.
Hagan said the city administration proposal was no increase next year. The union countered with a 1 percent increase next year.
It’s over but it’s not.
City Council passed a half-mill real estate tax increase and approved Mayor Derek Slaughter’s $29 million 2021 budget Thursday, but with an eye toward reopening the budget in January to see if further reductions to the size of tax millage increase can take place.
Council and the administration set the tax rate at 16.22 mills, but upon getting information from Norman Lubin, city solicitor, learned it had to before Feb. 15 to reopen, discuss options and adopt the reopened budget.
If nothing is done, the half-mill is $50 more per tax bill for households assessed at $100,000.
To reach a quarter-mill would require finding $217,000 more in reductions or a combination of revenue or cut in staff, Council President Randall J. Allison said.