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ST. CLAIRSVILLE -- Several new developments in water and electric infrastructure were on the table during Monday's city council meeting.
Debate also continued on the eve of Tuesday's election of new council members.
Mayor Kathryn Thalman commended the St. Clairsville Area Chamber of Commerce for hosting a Meet the Candidates Night last week, but she also responded to criticism by 4th Ward council candidate Terry Pugh that a low-interest loan of $800,000 for waterline repairs at Bellview Street and Overbaugh Avenue was not pursued by the city. Thalman said it was a matching money loan, with the match to be put up by Aqua Ohio on the contingency that the city privatize its water service.
"This to me would have been bad business," Thalman said.
She also responded to a comment from 2nd Ward candidate Bill Brooks that the city had spent COVID-19 relief funds on police equipment. She said the city had been encouraged to invest in police equipment when the money was received.
Thalman also said the city has significantly reduced spending compared to prior years.
After the meeting, Pugh said the loan would have had no matching funds required and next meeting he intends to bring Ohio Public Works documentation showing this.
"She's entitled to her opinion. I just think we have other things we could put our money towards," Brooks said.
Council passed an ordinance authorizing Safety and Service Director Jeremy Greenwood to solicit competitive bids for a new 69-kilovolt Hess substation dead-end and metering addition for no more than $600,000 for 2022. Utilities Director Don Smithberger said this was in conjunction with an American Electric Power project.
"That's the power that feeds our substation. The substation breaks it down into distribution voltage for the customers, but this is an upgrade to the metering and the delivery system to the substation," Smithberger said. "We have to rebuild our power lines."
Smithberger said the project cost could have been close to $700,000, but the city and AEP managed to trim almost $100,000. He said work is expected to be completed in 2022.
Greenwood also announced the Ohio Department of Transportation has approved the city's proposal to run a new permanent main waterline through a culvert under Interstate 70. When city employees found the main line from the water treatment plant was leaking, workers changed over to a temporary water line in August. Greenwood said running the new line through the current culvert will save time and money.
"We are waiting to actually get the documents together to get a permit," he said. "The next step is actually try and see if we can do what we can do, because we still don't know what shape that culvert's in underneath the interstate."
Ideally, total working time would be two weeks, and the cost is estimated at $700,000
If the culvert is not viable, it will be necessary to drill under the interstate and install new casement, with increased cost.
"With just drilling under the interstate, we're probably at half a million," he said. "Between what we spent already the material for the lines and doing that, we're starting to get up to over $1 million on that project.
Border Patrol of Hopedale has been contracted to do the work. Greenwood said the city would prefer to have work completed before winter.
"We're in November now. The snow's going to start flying soon," he said.
Greenwood also noted another upcoming water project. He pointed out the waterline at Ohio 9 south, past the new Bellstores being constructed, was supposed to be a 6-inch line. Greenwood said it is really a 3/4-inch line and a 1-inch line.
"We don't know where it's at, so we've got two options. One is to tear up Route 9," he said. Instead, the city will tap into the Linda Drive waterline that connects to the main line.
"We've got to bypass it, and this is the easiest way to do it," he said.
"We're going to run a new waterline … right down from Linda down to about where the interstate sign is, and we're going to put a new fire hydrant there. This will allow us, once we upgrade our distribution system and get this line upgraded -- it's a 6-inch-line now, but we'll upgrade it to an 8-inch line, we'll be able to come down and service all of Thompson (Street) and those areas that have low pressure, and potentially on the other side of the interstate."
The cost will be less than $50,000. Work could begin late this week.
In other matters, Police Chief Matt Arbenz also asked for good wishes for a part-time officer struggling with COVID-19.
A special meeting will be held at 7:30 p.m. Wednesday to appoint the winner of today's election to the vacant 1st Ward council seat. Outgoing councilman Perry Basile had stepped down, having missed repeated meetings for work-related reasons. Basile had not been seeking reelection.