Local News
UPDATE: Sanitary Authority will pay off city in installments
SHARON — The city of Sharon will get an infusion of cash this year from the Sharon Sanitary Authority.
Instead of paying the city $1.4 million in 2011 for the sewer collection lines as was agreed when the authority was formed in 2007 to take over operations of the wastewater treatment plant, authority members on Thursday agreed to pay the city $280,000 a year between now and 2013.
The first payment will be transferred to the city in August, Lucas said.
Council members Thursday voted 3-0 to accept the deal only if the money is set aside in a restricted account until council members, two of whom weren’t at the meeting, can get together with the mayor and auditors and “see where we’re at,” council member Victor Heutsche said. Council member Bob Messina and Vice President Frank Connelly were absent.
Concerns over the city’s dire financial straits at the moment and the ability of the authority to come up with a lump sum in two years led to discussions about restructuring the payment schedule, Mayor Bob Lucas said.
“For budgeting purposes I believe it makes it better for the city and it also helps the sanitary authority,” Lucas told council members.
Breaking the payments up over five years means the city will get $560,000 early and the authority can defer payment of $560,000. The money was set to be due by Dec. 31, 2011, and there is no interest involved.
Lucas said that the city won’t get the big windfall in a few years, but this way they can budget use of the funds over the five year period. And the city, which is facing a potential shortfall of revenue due to low wage tax collections, can certainly use the cash.
“It would help us now and in next year,” Lucas said, noting that it could balance this year’s budget if a deficit materializes or help pay for the salary of the new city manager the city will hire to replace him. How the money is spent will be up to council.
Earlier this week, Lucas said he wasn’t sure how much wage tax revenues were down but estimated they were at about 75 percent of what they should be at this point. He said he’d know more in the coming months.
Authority member Vincent Cardamon said he didn’t see any shortcomings in the plan.
“It’s not going to cost us anything. In four years it just might benefit us,” Cardamon said.
He called it was a “win-win” situation because the city needs the money now and the authority has it.
“The funds are there. That’s what’s important,” Cardamon said.
“I think it benefits everyone,” said authority Secretary Ed Winslow, who ran the meeting in the absence of Vice President Frank Connelly, who is ill, and after the resignation of former President Robert Beach. Authority members also named Connelly as chairman until the end of the year.
Lucas said he talked the issue over with authority financial consultant Gary Rose. Doing away with the large sum payment might help the authority avoid raising user fees down the road, Lucas said.
“We tossed around some numbers, but all I did was divide (the total owed) by five,” Lucas said.
- Local News
-
-
Commissioners formally move to raise sewer fees
Hermitage commissioners introduced an ordinance Wednesday to increase sanitary user fees.
Residents tapped into the Hermitage Municipal Authority lines now pay $95 a quarter. That rate will bump up to $105 a quarter on Jan. 1, under the proposed rate hike.
Two more hikes on Jan. 1, 2012, and Jan. 1, 2013, will result in the rates increasing 50 percent from the current fee. -
Water is on at Forrest Brooke
Water service has been restored at Forrest Brooke Manufactured Home Community after well problems left the 165-unit complex dry Tuesday.
A boil and conserve water advisory has been issued by the DEP and will remain in place until tests confirm the water is safe to drink, Forrest Brooke’s manager Pete Havens said.
-
Storm damages trees, wires
Thunderstorms ripped through parts of Mercer and neighboring counties Wednesday night, downing trees and wires and keeping rescue workers on their toes.
A Mercer County 911 dispatcher shortly after 8 p.m. said they were busy with calls across the northern part of the county. He said there had been a few reports of trees falling on homes.
-
City leaders open to talks
Sharon officials aren’t opposed to sitting down with their counterparts in Farrell to revisit the idea of combining the two struggling cities.
“It never costs a penny to talk and there’s no (idea) that’s not worth looking at,” Sharon councilman Ed Palanski said. “I think it would be foolish to oppose looking at the idea.”
-
Murphy’s Law doesn’t faze regional planners
A complicated, two-day public meeting blitz in 32 counties ran headlong into Murphy’s Law in Mercer County on Tuesday.
The group Power of 32 are looking to re-write the regional map and create a grand, 15-year strategic economic plan for the 32 counties in four states that make up the Ohio River basin and greater Pittsburgh area.
-
Forrest Brooke copes with water outage
Residents of Forrest Brooke Mobile Home Community in Jefferson and Lackawannock Townships woke up Tuesday morning to find they didn’t have any water.
Managers of the park could not be reached for comment, but residents said they were told they won’t get water service back for at least another month.
-
City facing bleak financial reality
LaVon Saternow has been Farrell’s city manager since 1992. Shortly after she took the job, Sharon Steel, the city’s economic engine, officially closed down.
Since, the city has struggled to remain solvent and Mrs. Saternow said it is facing its worst financial crisis in her tenure.
-
Near-complete addition to let man come home
Although the weather delayed the start of Penny and Paul Strechansky’s construction project by about three weeks, the end of the sawing, hammering and stapling is in sight.
“It should be done by the middle of next week,” Strechansky said of the 15-by-20 foot addition being built onto the back of his garage in Hermitage, which will be the new home of his grandson, David Johnson.
Johnson was critically injured in a car crash June 19, 2009, on what is now Interstate 376 in Lawrence County. The crash rendered Johnson, who just turned 21, blind and brain damaged. He is unable to care for himself.
-
Man prison-bound for role in drug buy shooting
It may never be known for certain who fired the two fatal shots that killed a Sharon teen on Nov. 6 on Wallis Avenue during a botched drug deal, prosecutors have said.
But Christopher Swogger, 24, Sharon, was fingered by at least one other suspect as the one whose bullets killed John B. Hosey III, 18, of 422 Meek St. Swogger was sentenced Monday.
Swogger was sent to prison for 1 1/2 to 3 years for having a firearm without a license, ending his role in the criminal prosecutions of the drug deal turned shooting.
-
Farrell, Sharon to revisit merger
Times are tough.
In Farrell Monday night, city council heard a grim financial report from City Manager LaVon Saternow.
“It’s not a pretty picture,” Mrs. Saternow said. “We could conceivably run out of cash by the end of the year. I don’t know how to put it more bluntly.”
- More Local News Headlines
-
Commissioners formally move to raise sewer fees
