T-L Photos/GAGE VOTA Shadyside Village Council member Lisa Duvall laughs and replies to Brady Stewart who commended her grant writing skills. Councilman Brandon Parr is seated at left.

SHADYSIDE — Multiple residents addressed Shadyside Village Council on Monday evening seeking more transparency.

Resident Brad Stewart spoke first and asked several questions about the village’s finances.

Stewart said he was recently looking through older newspaper articles about when council member Lisa Duvall was appointed to Shadyside Village Council.

“I happened to read the article when Lisa got appointed to council. It caught my attention because she has kind of an impressive resume, which is something that this council in town could use,” Stewart said.

He then asked Duvall if he read the article correctly that she is talented at writing grant application.

She laughed and replied, “I’m not going to deny that, but yes I have written some grants.” Stewart proceeded to ask her what type of grants the village is pursuing.

“I remember reading Mr. Parr’s quasi explanation for the raising of the rates was that we weren’t in line for what we were supposed to be. Was that a specific grant like an EPA grant that Shadyside was being denied for or was every single grant we tried to get was denied because we weren’t on that level?” he asked.

He then asked if the village had applied for the Community Development Block Grant program. According to the U.S. Department of Housing and Urban Development, “The Community Development Block Grant (CDBG) Program supports community development activities to build stronger and more resilient communities. To support community development, activities are identified through an ongoing process. Activities may address needs such as infrastructure, economic development projects, public facilities installation, community centers, housing rehabilitation, public services, clearance/acquisition, microenterprise assistance, code enforcement, homeowner assistance, etc.”

He said that in his opinion, the village should be applying for every grant that is available, adding, “It’s only paperwork.”

He was then handed a sheet of paper that listed several grants that the village has applied for since February 2023. The paper grouped the various grants into three sections, being grants received, grants in progress and grants denied. The six grants received are $300,000 for the main line replacement project from the Ohio Department of Development and Water and Waste, $5,000 from the JB Green Team for items purchased from recycled products, $1,000 from Public Entity Pools Safety Grant in 2023 and 2024 for the purchase of public safety clothing and to purchase ceiling tiles for the Shadyside Community Room, $43,904 from Health and Human Services for the GPS mapping project to map the villages waterlines, and $9,663 from The Ohio Environmental Protection Agency for the purchase of waterline locating equipment.

The two grants that are currently in progress are the $155,250 Ohio Public Works Commission emergency grant that is awarded for the engineering costs of the north water tower project and $1,433,548, also from Ohio Public Works, emergency grant for construction costs for the north water tower projects.

The one grant that was denied was the Ohio Department Development Water and Wastewater Infrastructure grant. The document also states that the village is currently working on a Safety Intervention grant from the Bureau of Workers’ Compensation.

“These are just the grants that I have personally worked on or applied for. We have received other grant money like the paving project, and the police department has received money, but these grants on this list are just what I did,” Village Administrator Erica Tamburin said. “So that’s not all inclusive, because there have been other grant monies received that I was not a part of like the paving project. This was just my report since I’ve been here.”

Stewart responded that the reason he started looking into old articles about the village is because of misinformation being spread on social media.

“Misinformation is kind of the downfall of people, I don’t even have a Facebook, but I’ve had a lot of people send me nonsense that was posted on Facebook,” he said.

He added that he believes if council were to provide more information regularly through various media it would help residents to be better informed and potentially not share unsubstantiated statements on social media.

“I haven’t seen any of this published, publish it. In the interest of transparency, put it out there. This is good information and negates so many of the arguments that people in public are having right now,” he said.

Tamburin responded to Stewart that Duvall did send out press releases as well as share the information on the village’s social media pages.

Resident Rich Parker then spoke. He asked council why it has hired an outside attorney. At the last village council meeting, council went into an executive session and retained Michael Shaheen of Shaheen Law Group for a personnel matter. Council declined to answer Parker.

He then asked, “Does anybody want to speak up? Was hiring another attorney for a specific reason?”

Council declined to answer him again, and he asked how much council is paying Shaheen Law Group, saying that should be public information.

Mayor Robert Newhart replied that the village is paying Shaheen Law Group $250 an hour.

Parker asked what Shaheen Law Group could do that Village Solicitor Thomas Ryncarz can’t do.

“That’s what I thought, closed lips. If I were sitting in your guys’ seats and you were up here asking questions you’d want answers. I think that the council should be more transparent,” Parker said.

He followed up by asking who made the decision to work with an outside attorney and questioned if any of the council members have ever done business with Shaheen Law Group. Councilwoman Melanie Haswell and Newhart responded that they can’t speak for the rest of council, but neither of them have ever worked with Shaheen Law Group. Parker then asked if this matter is a specific case, which Newhart confirmed.

“Why is everyone so tight-lipped about this situation?” he asked.

Councilman Robert “Bushwacker” Gorrell responded it is because the situation was discussed in executive session, which he believes means it cannot be discussed in open public form. Tambourine added, “Also I think that this is your time to speak and our time to listen.”

Parker asked council if anyone was going to answer his questions once he finished talking. Gorrell restated that he believes council isn’t allowed to speak about decisions made in executive session.

“OK, that’s fine. I don’t want to say something that I shouldn’t. Put me on the docket for the next meeting please,” Parker said.

Parr told Parker that he will have to call the mayor’s office and provide his topic of conversation. Parker said it will be the same topic he addressed Monday.