T-L Photos/GAGE VOTA Council members Mike Meintel (left) and Brandon Parr during the debate that kicked off the Shadyside Village Council meeting on Monday evening.

SHADYSIDE — Tempers were high when the Shadyside Village Council met on Monday evening surrounding confusion with changes to the council’s public forum policy.

In July, the council changed its policy to state that if a Shadyside resident wished to speak at a council meeting, that person must be registered ahead of time to be part of the agenda.

At the start of Monday’s meeting, council member Melanie Haswell mentioned that Michael Shaheen of Shaheen Law Group followed the proper procedures to be allowed to speak at the council meeting but his name wasn’t on the meeting’s agenda. Haswell asked why, and council member Brandon Parr replied, “Is he speaking in the public forum? No, he’s speaking in an executive session. This is for people who would wish to speak in the public meeting.”

“So then if someone is coming in for an executive session then they wouldn’t be on the agenda?” Haswell responded.

“I hope this is a one off,” Parr replied. “I think this all needs to stop and it needs to stop now.”

According to Parr, Haswell’s question was already answered in a text message prior to the council meeting, although Haswell was unclear with the answer she was given prior to the meeting because it didn’t fully answer her question.

“I just wanted to make sure,” she said.

“It’s a personnel matter so it should be handled in executive session,” Shaheen said. “Whether or not my appearance here should’ve been on the agenda is whatever you guys’ pleasure, it’s no problem for me either way.”

Five minutes into the meeting, council went into closed-door session, then emerged with the decision for the Village of Shadyside to retain Shaheen Law Group regarding a personnel matter.

Village Administrator Erica Tamburin proceeded to inform the council that she needed them to make a motion to accept the village’s pay scale that has been updated to add the Water Operator Donnie Navin and the Water Operator’s staff.

“So, our Water Operator Donnie Navin was actually hired before I was here,” Tamburin said. “There was an ordinance for that and then the EPA mandated that we have a backup water operator and we hired him effective February 1 of this year which is reflected in the council’s minutes.

“But the auditor asked that we add them to the pay scale since everyone else was on the pay scale,” she added. “They wanted to see the council make a motion to approve this pay scale with adding them.”

Council approved the additions.

Tamburin then gave the council an update on the sewer plant that has been the cause of a strong odor in the village for several weeks. The holdup on the fixing of the system was caused by the village having to wait for parts it needed to be delivered.

“The diffusers are in and have been installed in the south basin,” she said, “so we are in the process of taking that aeration basin back online hopefully by the end of the week, moving into the weekend that will be operating in full capacity.

“After we see and make sure that the south basin is working properly we will begin to empty the north and replace the fusers on the north one,” she continued.

Tamburing mentioned that this will still be several more weeks until the project is completed. She told the council that she cannot give an estimated time but she’s planning on it being completed within the next month.