WEIRTON CITY COUNCIL

COUNCIL MEETING - SPECIAL

FRIDAY, FEBRUARY 20, 2009; 10:00 AM

A special meeting of the Common Council of the City of Weirton, Hancock and Brooke Counties, West Virginia was held on Friday, February 20, 2009 at 10:00 A.M. in Council Chambers of the Weirton City Building.

Mayor Harris called the meeting to order.

Councilmembers in Attendance:

George Ash Councilmember Ward 4

Ronnie Jones Councilmember Ward 1

Fred Marsh Councilmember Ward 3

Harold Miller Councilmember Ward 2

David Dalrymple Councilmember Ward 6

Max Fijewski Councilmember Ward 7

George Kondik Councilmember Ward 5

City Officials in Attendance:

Gary DuFour City Manager

Thomas J. Maher, Jr. Finance Director

Nicole Davis City Clerk

A. D. Mastrantoni Utilities Director

Others in Attendance:

Media - Weirton Daily Times

Mayor Harris led everyone in reciting the Pledge of Allegiance.

COMMUNICATIONS

Ms. Davis stated that she had presented the Council with an additional packet regarding the Fire Civil Service Commission. The Commission had made a motion to amend Rule IV- Section 2 of Appendix C. The motion was made Wednesday, February 18, 2009. The Commission had asked Ms. Davis to present the motion to Council.

Mr. Dufour stated, “When the Fire Civil Service Commission is promulgating a rule, they may do so. Council has the option to bring legislation to accept, reject, or make no comment at all in which case it 20 days it would be accepted as a rule of the Commission.”

Councilman Ash stated that Council had just received the packet and he did not want this to become a rule until Council had a chance to review the documentation.

Council stated that this amendment made by the Fire Civil Service Commission would be added to the next meeting’s agenda.

NEW BUSINESS

1. Ordinance to establish a dedicated residential disability parking space in front of 100 Wetzel Street for John R. Zielinsky. (Councilman Dalrymple)

Motion was made by Councilman Dalrymple, second by Councilman Ash.

Councilman Dalrymple asked Council to make this an emergency reading, stating that Mr. Zielinsky had been very patient waiting for the Ordinance to be passed.

Motion carried by majority, 7/0.

2. Ordinance amending the Text of the Unified Development Ordinance Table 1.

Motion was made by Councilman Ash, second by Councilman Jones.

Councilman Ash asked Council to make this an emergency reading, stating the individual had been waiting to open his business for months.

Motion carried by majority, 7/0.

3. Ordinance establishing and fixing rates, fees, and charges of the Municipal Water Works System of the City of Weirton, West Virginia.

Motion was made by Councilman Jones, second by Councilman Kondik.

Councilman Ash stated that during the tenor of Mayor Dean Harris, there were multiple Councilmembers that were either retired from or members of Weirton Steel, and they received either a paycheck or retirement check from Weirton Steel.

Councilman Ash stated, “At that time I sent a request to the Ethics Commission and the Ethics Commission came back and ruled that anyone that was receiving a retirement check or a paycheck from Weirton Steel, they would have to abstain and recues themselves and leave the room. Therefore, based on that ruling based on 1995 or 1996, I would like Mr. Jones to do so.

The Mayor stated that the City Attorney received the papers back form the Ethics Committee, and Councilman Jones was able to vote.

Ms. Davis called A.D. Mastrantoni before Council for comments regarding the Ordinance.

Mr. Mastrantoni stated, “I find myself in an un-enviable position approaching you in this economic climate and asking you to consider adjusting rates and charges for Sanitary and Water service in our town. I think it would be understating to say this is the worse of times, but having the experience I’ve had it’s never the best of times when we’re talking rate increases. I therefore ask you to hear the evidence and give us a fair decision based on what we provide you here today. The reasons for requiring rate adjustments are like a cascade, a waterfall. There are probably a myriad of them that no-one can portray in the confines of this meeting to you accurately. If I could group them, there are probably three main groups. The first group is practical: health concerns, cost, economy, those sorts of things. The next group is physical. The physical group revolves around the fact that we have received a $2.3 million federal grant, and the last and probably most compelling, are the legal requirements that we have to address by setting the rate that is sufficient that we can continue to provide our legal requirements as a city and as a Water Department.

Most all of you understand that the Water Board and the City has entered into a consent order with the U.S. EPA to construct a facility that is capable of addressing the disinfecting by-products that are formed as a result of disinfecting water. When we treat water, most water treatment plants in West Virginia use Chlorine. The Chlorine kills the small micro-biotic organisms that are in the water that are not fit for human consumption that can make you sick very rapidly. The use of Chlorine is a standard used chemical used for disinfection, but as time goes on after the initial chlorinization we see that Chlorine begins to have chemical effects that create compounds known as Tri-Helo-Methanes or TTHM’s. These are commonly referred to as disinfection by-products, hence the Safe Drinking Water Act established a disinfection by-product rule. We had been fortunate with our original water treatment plant that was built in 1964. However, that plant and the fact that the Safe Drinking Water Act was reviewed and the standards were made more constricted with regard to TTHM’s, require us now to look at the plant and upgrade it in order to address those TTHM levels and remove them and keep them below the bar set by the Safe Drinking Water Standards. Tri-helo-methanes are cancer causing agents. They are known carcinogens. You can see why the U.S. EPA has set the bar through the Safe Drinking Water Act at a point they believe will keep all of us healthy. Living organisms must ingest water, we have no choice. Weirton area water board and its technical staff, who we are part of, are taking every step possible to step to reduce Tri-Helo-Methane constituency at our plant and in our finished water. However, those carcinogens do exist, and we are under administrative order to remove them from our finished water. Our water today is totally compliant, we have met the standards. The reason we have met the standards is that through the use of part of the grant dollars, our staff was able to construct a temporary solution. We took a C-tainer, retro-fitted it, and placed four air strippers on top of it in a series of pumps. The Hazleton air stripper that we are using at the base of our plant actually strips away TTHM’s using air. The administrative order that we are under from the EPA requires a permanent solution. That consent order that we are under is a mandate, but we have been fortunate enough that the Federal Government partially funded this mandate. Through the efforts of Congressman Mollohan we were able to receive a $2.3 million grant from the U.S. EPA to address the costs in part of providing that permanent solution at our Weirton Water Treatment Plant. The federal grant does require participation. We, in essence, have to help ourselves. They’ve helped us more than they have on other unfunded mandates. The total project costs are approximately $4.3 million, and it still will require us to generate approximately $1.9 million in local funding; which brings me to the second legal reason why we need to act on a rate adjustment today.

Councils before had have enacted and placed out their bonds for bond holders to buy, had to pass a bond ordinance. The bond ordinance establishes certain covenance that will be met by the City and its operating entity for its utilities. That Ordinance requires a 115% coverage. In order to float the next series of bonds that generates the loan for our $1.9 million dollars, that constitutes the local share to be matched against the $2.3 federal monies. If we don’t have that 115% coverage, we will out of compliance and incapable of producing another bond issuance. As a result, you will be saying we don’t want to invest in this project, Washington D.C. take your money back, and will have to build this permanent structure shouldering all of the expenses and passing those expenses on to our customers.

On the water side, we are asking for an increase of $3.00 a month flat, as a customer charge. That increase we are asking for amounts to $36.00 a year. We are also adjusting the rates by $.23, and that is the incremental rate charged for 1000 gallons of water. If you take the $.23 increase, and given that the average customer of the City of Weirton uses 4500 gallons of water monthly and we project that out on the year, the total increase for the year is $12.42. If we add that to the $36.00 we are asking, we have a total of $48.42 more per year we are requesting in an increase. That arrives at $.13 a day. In sewer, we are asking for an adjustment of $3.00 a month, no adjustment to the incremental rate. If we divide that by the number of days in a year, that’s $.098 a day. We are under volatile economic times. I know what I’m asking you for, it’s not easy. We will be truly dedicated to providing this community with healthful water. Voting against this will be a real tragedy. Our final goal here is to deliver a healthful product, free of cancer causing agents or as free as possible, to our final customer, the Weirton resident.”

Ms. Davis called Vince Collins, attorney for Steptoe and Johnson, before Council for comments regarding the Ordinance.

Mr. Collins stated, “We have, in the past, prepared Ordinances you have done. There are several reasons you need a rate increase. The first is that you have an EPA compliance project coming up, and it is required by the consent decree that you do this on a certain time table; if you don’t comply with that consent decree, fines will follow. I think most of you are familiar with the fines the City incurred a few years ago on another consent decree. It is not uncommon for fines to reach pretty high levels. The EPA has a very good system of enforcing its rules and regulations. They come down with these regulations that are applicable to every single water or sewer system in the country. They give you some time to comply with it, and they also give you some grant money to comply with it that is usually administered through state agencies, which is the case here. They also have a hammer, and the hammer is you if don’t comply with it in the time you are supposed to, the fines begin. They’re usually done on a per-diem basis, and they start out fairly small and get larger very quickly. They can reach hundreds of thousands of dollars in no time at all. Once those fines are assessed, there’s no getting them back. You’re spending customer’s money to pay the fines because you didn’t do what should have been done. So that’s the enforcement hammer that the EPA has, and they are relentless. The primary concern is you’ve got to comply with this consent decree. This consent decree is basically a contract between you and the EPA, and if don’t agree to that you suffer the consequences. In order to comply with that, you must build the disinfection treatment project, which means you are going to have to issue bonds to do that because the amount of grant money you are getting is not sufficient to cover the entire project. The rate covenance requires you to maintain water and sewer rates, at 115% coverage. If you don’t maintain that 115% coverage, then you are in violation of the Ordinance, and that means when your audit is completed it will have a footnote to it that states that the City is not compliant with its covenant. That will trigger a series of events from your bond holder which is the state of West Virginia on both of your bonds. The EPA goes to court and get a receiver to basically take over the system. The receiver doesn’t have to go through Council. They come in and say we’re going to set these rates and that’s it, and they also have legal fees. It’s a much more expensive way then if you do it yourself.

The second reason is that you are required to have that 115% coverage in order to issue new bonds. When you go for your bond issue to comply with the EPA project, you won’t be able to do it unless you have the CPA certificate, and of course the CPA can’t d it unless the rates are sufficient. What I mean when I say 115% coverage, is that your net revenues after you pay all of your expenses must be at least 15% greater than your debt service is on an annual basis. Those are the reasons from a legal prospective that you need to adjust the rates.

I know this is probably one of the least favorite things that a Council has to address. No on wants a rate increase. This is not a large rate increase from a dollar prospective or a percentage prospective, but I understand that even a couple dollars a month could be a possible problem. I can tell you this; if you don’t pass a rate increase in a timely basis it will cost your customers more because you will incur the legal costs of the bond holders as well as fines from the EPA if you don’t get this project built in time. These fines are not refundable once they are assessed, and if you don’t pay it will be in Federal Court on contempt charges. I kind of compare the EPA to the IRS.”

Ms. Davis called Dan Ware, with the accounting firm of Ware and Hall, before Council for comments regarding the Ordinance.

Mr. Ware stated, “They (the Water Board) came up with a proposal they thought would be sufficient to accomplish the objectives, and they asked for me to review it. They charged me with the responsibility of doing two things; one- did I think a rate increase was necessary, and two- did I think their proposal was reasonable and sufficient to cover the projected operating expenses. I requested the June 30, 2008 trail balances on both the sanitary and water board and performed some projections in to 2009 by taking historical information and factoring in variables that we either know or anticipate to affect 2009. Based on my review, I have concluded that a rate increase is necessary. It’s to continue to provide the level of service, maintain your systems in proper operating order, and to cover escalating costs.

One of the things that haven’t been touched is that you have additional costs in 2008 and more so in 2009 related to 06-07 bond issues for the water and sanitary board. Also, there are additional appreciation expenses that are built in to 2009 financial statements, as a result of your Belleview tank construction and sewer plant upgrades. When I looked at your June 30, 2008 unaudited financial statement, you are under that 115% requirement. My calculations indicate you are at about 105%, so as it stands now you are not in compliance with your bond Ordinance.

In order to secure additional bond issues, you have to be in compliance with your existing bond Ordinance for the prior twelve months. In reviewing the proposed increase by management, I have concluded that would be sufficient to address the operating expenses of the systems and meet the bond covenant. There are some projects that were not built in to these projections, but we tried to keep this to the bare essentials to keep the cost down and keep the systems operating efficiently.

The projected rate increase on the water side is projected to generate about $485,000 a year. Some of the other expense factors I built in were; 2 ½% salary increases which are a little bit short of cost of living expenses and that’s expected to increase payroll expenses by $30,000, including the payroll tax benefits, health insurance premiums expected to increase about 4% and that’s about a $10,000 effect, professional fees increase of 4% that’s just essentially cost of living not a very significant dollar effect, 15% increase in chemicals and supplies which has about a $35,000 effect on the Water Board, maintenance repairs projected to increase 8% plus partial painting project. Management has decided to break this down in to stages, and they projected a $75,000 from the current year, that’s added about $91,000 of additional expenses with the 8% increase on normal repair and maintenance. Utility costs are projected to increase about 6%, that yields about $19,000 of additional expenses, and gas and oil is projected to increase 52%, liability insurance projected to increase 21% and that’s $5,600 increase, appreciation expenses on the Belleview Tank adds $56,000 to the expenses, interest expense will add about $75,000 of expense.”

Mr. Collins stated, “Even if you approve this rate Ordinance today, the process to actually having the rates implemented is a long one. The rates will almost certainly be appealed by some of your wholesale customers, all it takes is one. That appeal process gives the Public Service Commission jurisdiction to review the rates to see if they are fair and sufficient, or whether they are too much, and that process takes 180 days. The rate increase that is being proposed will give you rates that are a little bit higher then is required to meet the 115% coverage. The reason for that is if you pass a rate increase that just barely meets the 115% coverage today, by the time the rates are actually implemented, you will be out of coverage because the cost of things go up.”

Councilman Kondik stated, “If you lower the rate to today, and change the rate in six or nine months, what’s the cost to do something like that; is there an additional cost for attorney fees?”

Attorney Collins stated, “If you implement rates lower than rates being proposed and then have do to another one in nine rates, there is a cost involved. I can’t tell you exactly what that cost is but there are costs to prepare the rate Ordinance and significant legal costs. You will have to hire a Public Service Commission attorney.”

Attorney Dan Guida stated, “Because of the temporary fix, the EPA has actually the time line (to complete the project). We had to take about $150,000 out of the grant to do a temporary fix otherwise we would be on a much tighter time-table. If everything goes as planned we should be up and running by Spring. The EPA stated that you will do this project and not pay a fine, or you won’t do this project and pay a fine, that’s the bottom line. The only thing we could use as a legal defense is something called force-major’, which is an act of God or nature. It specifically says that increases in costs or expenses shall not be considered force major’ events.”

Councilman Fijewski stated, “We are here today to help insure good water quality, and I think we all accept that. There’s another reason why we are here; that’s to see whether or not these rates are justified. Expenses happen by us not having any voice. Unfortunately, the conclusion we have to come to is determining is there is enough money there to cover these expenses. It has been said quite well that if we don’t take action ASAP that somehow these draconian events will occur, and I take exception to that. If the timing is so critical then why weren’t these rates brought to us previously to give this Council sufficient time to look at it and understand it. To suggest that we get these documents three or four weeks in advance, one of which is this thick and the other equally as thick, and we’re supposed to absorb it and come in here in an informed manner and make a decision on what our constituents have to pay, I don’t think is appropriate.

The GATSPY assumption built in to the rates represents $207,000, approximately 40% of the total monies being asked for. This Council and this City pays $170,000 a year as a penalty for not having post-employment benefits. We do not have a defined benefit program or defined contribution program. To suggest that we have to put up $207,000 for that, to me is extremely excessive.

My interpretation of what you were attesting to was the fact that your assumptions were based on current actual for the period that just ended. Each month City Council gets a report from the Water Department showing total water Department revenue for the period and total water expenses for the period. When you see that, the operative word is total. For example, on the last document we received the total water department revenue for the period was $274,000, total water expenses for the period were $112,000. That’s a $162,000 positive variance between the two. I found out yesterday that report did not reflect the expenses for bond service, finance department cost, professional fees, new equipment purchases, utility expenses, administrative payroll, R&R fund payment, and other office expenses which are another $119,000 of expenses. So why aren’t the $119,000 of expenses reported in the total water department expenses? If we are the Council in charge of making sure we have enough funds, we would have seen a long time ago that we are barely breaking even.

This document we received dated 1/31/09, revenue expenses: M-T-D and Y-T-D; total revenues equal $1,574,603; expenses for the same period equal $1,218,698.26, a positive variance of $355,904.98. My concern about not having any responsibility for expenses is that the information we get as Council appears to be inaccurate on a monthly basis. I looked at the budget you submitted to us; in the bond issue there’s a $78,000 charge for the R&R fund. Why is the repair and replacement fund under a bond issuance? The other information we received showed you have a bank account Water Board R&R fund with WesBanco: Ending Balance as of January 31, 2009- $187,656. It’s an increase of $19,000 from the previous month. I think I’ve made my point.

You’re looking at a 32.4% increase. Depreciation alone is $270,000. I guess what I’m saying is that we all want the City water to be healthy and meet the standards. Council before us had passed increases in rates to fulfill the requirements for these bonds. For whatever reason, I guess their increases weren’t enough because you’re back here again wanting us to give you more money to pay for the same bonds that were issued out years ago, one being in 1991. We issued bonds in 1998, we issued bonds in 2006, we clearly do not have the money to pay for the bonds. If we didn’t have the money to pay for these bonds at the time of their issuance, we are telling this community that if we give this increase now it is nothing more than a band-aid, it is not going to pay for these bonds over a forty year period without significant more increases between now and when they come due.”

Attorney Collins stated, “You get your bond revenues, and you are required under your bond ordinance to first pay certain expenses, and there’s about six items to pay from that. The City is required to deposit 2 ½ % of gross revenues in the R&R fund. The purpose of the renewal and replacement fund is to provide a cash cushion to cover expenses and repairs, rather to have to borrow the money elsewhere.”

Councilman Fijewski stated, “There seems to be a lot of assumptions to build up funds for things that may or may not happen. We have $178,000 to pay for the R&R fund. The total assets that you need in the Water Department in terms of a rate increase in something I am trying to address.”

Mr. Mastrantoni stated, “Those funds in the R&R are ear-marked to address the painting of the Marland Heights tank. It has been 24 years since that tank has been painted. It will need to be painted inside and out. We estimate those costs to exceed $187,000, and that’s why we are asking for the additional $75,000 to be put back. The paints have to lead free and they are applied in a certain way by contractors who guarantee they will last for 20 years +. We were fortunate enough to get 24 years out of the Marland Height tank.”

Councilman Fijewski stated, “You’re asking us to consider an (rate) increase and I don’t know what’s real or not. I don’t know what numbers are real, the presumptions are predicated upon what?”

Mr. Ware stated, “Those dollars (on the R&R fund) are restricted for specific purposes related to the repair and maintenance of the system. You can’t spend those on just anything. You’re drawing distinctions between two different things although they are related. One’s a cash flow and one’s an accrual basis revenue expense presentation. The expenditure to painting the water tank goes through your income statement as an expenditure which requires to be funded. The intent of the R&R fund is give the bond holders a peace of mind that you are required to build up reserve cash to make the necessary repairs and replacements. This is to provide the means to be able to provide those repairs on an on going basis.”

Attorney Collins stated, “Many years ago you wisely determined to appoint a board to oversee the water system. There are some smaller towns that don’t have a board; they basically run the system from Council. It is a terrible mistake for you to run any water system of considerable size and complexity. Yours is way too big for that. You would be taking up 90% of your time on Council worrying about personal matters and expenses, and things like that. The purpose to have a board is to insulate the board from the political whims of Council. It usually ends up in a death spiral when Council starts meddling in the affairs of the water board and sanitary board. It may satisfy your constituents for awhile, but eventually it turns in to a mess.”

Councilman Ash stated, “If you noticed the very first comment that was made was a discrepancy in the amount (on the expense reports). I think the board should look in to that and make a decision as to who you want to speak for your board. Your salary and wages are predicted to increase 2 ½% due to raises being given. Is that raises that have already been given or raises that will be given?

Mr. Ware stated that applied to raises that have already been given.

Councilman Ash stated, “We didn’t have that opportunity to give our general fund employees a raise, but you were able to do that without coming to Council. You want us to pay for something you’ve already given. So we approve this we are saying to give your water board pay increases and pay their interest on their health insurance, but we are not going to do that for our general fund employees. That’s just ridiculous. Why is the liability insurance projected to go so high?”

Mr. Ware stated, “Those things are out of your control. You can shop around, but the insurance companies come back to you and tell you what the projected increase is going to be.”

Mr. Mastrantoni stated, “We have given cost of living adjustments. As the Council so astutely felt that it was important to give retention bonuses, we have employees that must be licensed. They handle your drinking water every day. Other neighboring municipalities pay wages in excess of what we are paying right now, but we are fortunate enough to have retained using to the 2.5% retention as you did with your retention bonus. We did our best given the funds and we have to make an adjustment to keep employees, just as you have given the funds you had to make adjustments to keep your employees. The impact to our budget is $30,000 a year wages and benefits. In your case, it was far more. I realize you have far more individuals, but the point is we were under the cost of living indexes that are provided for social security recipients and retirees. Our COLA (cost of living adjustment) couldn’t even be considered a cost of living adjustment. It was the good faith efforts of the boards that were portrayed to its employees. It was a contractual matter. It was a three year contract that the sanitary board entered in to under the previous administration.”

Councilman Ash stated, “You know I feel about autonomous boards. There’s no secret about this. It seems like every attorney that ever talks to me about it always says the same thing you just said. It always comes back to we have to pay what you have already done, without our knowledge. If you would have come to us and said we’re going to have a 2 ½% pay increase for all of our employees, we would have had to tell you no. You didn’t do that because you didn’t have to do it. I’m not willing to sit here and vote for something you have already done.”

Councilman Fijewski stated, “I think it’s fair game to question the assumptions. Would it be appropriate for you to come back to us and say to us here’s a range. This is absolutely what we need, this is what we would like to have so we do this. Is that fair to ask that? Some of us have questioned the assumptions, I think legitimately. You obviously feel that you need to have the monies you requested. If this Council were to say to you what is the bare minimum you need to meet the 115% bond requirements without throwing all of these other things?”

Councilman Marsh asked Mr. Ware whether this was a sufficient increase, or is this too much.

Mr. Ware stated, “I think this the bare essentials. Yes there is $75,000 in the painting of the water tank, but other than that I think this is the bare essentials. We could go back and give you different scenarios of if they wanted to replace fire hydrants and other projects.”

Councilman Marsh stated, ”I have not read anything related to cost cutting measures.

Is there a plan for cost cutting measures, these being trying times?”

Mr. Mastrantoni stated, “I refer you to the packet that you said did not contain that. We’ve been implementing cost cutting measures since I got here in 1991. I came under the clout of a recently passed rate ordinance that demanded we perform and review both boards operation in order to get as cost effective as possible. Since 1999, we are in water six employees less than we were in 1999. If you look in sewer, we are five employees less than in 1999. We have been reviewing positions each and every year to see if we were staffed appropriately, or if we could incorporate jobs and the undesirable part eliminating jobs. I don’t think any business attains 100% effective rate 100% of the time. With the exception of one or two support positions, our staffing is down as low as it can go. The next series of cuts comes in the services we provide to our customers. We can look at reduction of overtime by not responding after hours to emergency line repairs. We can assemble a crew to isolate the break and make the repairs on normal operation hours. Our customers have been very fortunate only having to go without water for a few hours as opposed to a few days. We would like to continue providing that service to our customers that come to respect it.”

Councilman Marsh stated, “We’re going to have to start thinking in our minds if water is the business we want to be in. This is the cat chasing its tail right now. Lastly to both boards, I am not going to pass these Ordinances unless they are amended or tabled about how you want to advertise. I am insulted by that. That should have been put in to the Weirton Daily Times, and you want it in the Hancock County Courier and whatever the paper is in Brooke County.”

Mr. Mastrantoni stated, “I didn’t mean to slight the Weirton Daily Times, and that can be totally amended.”

Attorney Guida stated, “The Secretary of State’s website has qualified newspaper where you have to advertise. It may give you choices within the counties of which papers, but then you have to select one. We have to go by that. Weirton Daily Times is not a qualified newspaper for Brooke County. You can always run in additional newspapers if you want and incur additional expenses if you want, but you have to at least run it in these certain newspapers.”

Councilman Miller stated, “I requested we had this meeting at 8:00 in the morning. I am disappointed we didn’t have a workshop. In previous years we always had a workshop with the water board to talk about this issue. I do understand it was requested by a member of the water board to have a workshop, and I don’t know why we didn’t grant their request. I apologize to the public for this.”

Councilman Dalrymple stated, “You knew that this project had to be done quite a while ago. In that course of time there have been many things that have happened in the economy, with your board: raises, equipment purchases. I had no idea that this consent decree was entered. Now it’s right here. We’re being told we need to do this now or we’re going to get fined. I am upset that you sign something like that and you know that you are going to have to come to us eventually and do a rate increase that will cover this mandated project, why do you wait till now. Why didn’t you give us a heads up and say this is what we are going to do. I understand that you can do what you want because we have no hand in it. Common courtesy would have been the thing to do, and let us know earlier not now. I understand that Congress doesn’t want to hear we don’t have enough money as an excuse, but neither do our constituents and the residents of this community that will have to pay more money that they don’t have. I am just upset over the fact that there a project that needs to be done and we’re being brought in to the fold at the last mintute. This is going to have a dire effect on the community however this washes out, whether it’s passed or not. I would like to see on paper detailing what the water and sewer board has done to cut expenses. We are responsibility to this City and its residents to run the general fund as a lean as we can. I don’t feel comfortable with the numbers being laid in my lap right now, especially as skewed as they have been, that we are there. I do not feel that with all of the information laid out today that we can honestly hold a vote on this item today, and I make a motion to table this.”

The Mayor stated, “This is a lot to digest. It is not fair to the citizens to vote on it, so I will support that.”

A motion was made to table the issue by Councilman Dalrymple, second by Councilman Marsh.

Motion carried by majority, 7/0.

4. Ordinance establishing and fixing rates, fee, and charges of the Municipal Sanitary Board of the City of Weirton.

Motion was made by Councilman Kondik, second by Councilman Miller.

Councilman Dalrymple made a motion to table this issue, second by Councilman Fijewski.

Motion carried by majority, 7/0.

5. Resolution stating the reasonable expectations of the City Council of the City of Weirton to reimburse the Weirton area Water Board for capital expenditures in connection with the design, acquisition, construction, and quipping of water system facilities and improvements made prior to the issuance of tax-exempt revenue bonds.

The Mayor called for motion three times.

The resolution dies for lack of a motion.

ADJOURNMENT

With no further business before this February 20, 2009 special session of the Weirton City Council the meeting was adjourned after the closing prayer.