DISCUSSION -- City engineer Mike Dolak talks about plans for the Mall Drive area during Tuesday's Steubenville City Council meeting. -- Linda Harris

STEUBENVILLE — City Council is moving forward with plans for a community garden and outdoor learning center, part of Steubenville’s Choice Neighborhood Early Action Project.

In December, Steubenville’s North End was one of nine area nationwide chosen to receive $500,000 Choice Neighborhood planning grants, a U.S. Housing and Urban Development initiative aimed at helping communities find ways to reinvent distressed neighborhoods. A portion of each planning grant is earmarked for implementation of an “early action project” aimed at improving neighbors’ trust in the project, sustaining their interest and energy and building excitement about the Choice Neighborhood program, Urban Projects Director Chris Petrossi said during Tuesday’s meeting.

At the end of the planning process, one of the nine neighborhoods will be awarded $30 million to $50 million to implement their plan.

Petrossi told council the Steubenville group chose as its Early Action Project development of a community garden and outdoor learning center at 913 N. Fifth St., the northwest corner of Fifth and Franklin streets. They’re envisioning asphalt art, a community garden and a pavilion to be used for an outdoor gardening area for students.

“Our group, along with residents, came up with four or five projects, and this is the one they selected,” he said. “There are four lots there, one is owned by the city, the other three by Steubenville City Schools. In order to make it happen, it will be necessary for us to transfer (our) lot to SCS because they will be assuming management and maintenance responsibilities for it once it is finished.”

Petrossi said the city acquired the lot at an auditor’s sale for $100. It’s currently valued by the assessor at around $5,000.

“SCS has been maintaining this lot for us,” he said. “It’s right next to where they are, it just made sense.”

After Law Director Costa Mastros pointed out Ohio Revised Code allows municipalities to transfer property to school board’s within municipal limits without going to bid, council sunshined legislation facilitating transfer of the property.

Petrossi said they’ll also have to rezone the site to public and semi-public.

“This is part of the Early Action Project, being done in conjunction with our HUD Choice Neighborhood planning efforts,” he said later. “The whole idea of EAP is to bring the neighborhood together and to create a project that can generate excitement and get people aware of the HUD Choice Neighborhood Plan and what’s happening in their neighborhood.

“It’s one step in the whole planning effort, which hopefully will end up in our being able to get implementation dollars later,” he added, reminding council that they “can’t just use grant funds to fund their plan.”

“We need to use other people’s money and there’s a lot of other money that can be brought in … investments in the school system, infrastructure, other things that are going on in the neighborhood,” he’d said.

He said they need to “track what we spend in the neighborhood, it could potentially be used as our investment. Steubenville City School’s $50 million investment in a new STEM school also counts toward that local investment.

Fourth Ward Councilman Royal Mayo said with the $500,000 already received from HUD, “they expect a complete project that will be up and running when the planning phase is over. This will be impact the community, it’s cost-effective and a positive addition to the neighborhood.”

Council also heard from City Engineer Mike Dolak that they’re going to have to address some big-budget road issues — chiefly, repaving the large portion of county Road 43 that falls within city limits and developing a Mall Drive travel plan that would “enhance and improve access for pedestrians.” Work on the John Scott Connector is also on the horizon and he said council should be thinking ahead to Phase 4 of the Lovers Lane widening project.

He said 2,500 cars a day use county Road 43.

“I’m out of money,” he said. “If there’s some way we can find money … I’ve gotten a lot of calls the last couple of days … it’s in pretty bad shape.”

He said they need to look at ways to make it easier and safer for pedestrians to navigate Mall Drive, which is seeing renewed interest with the opening of Dunham Sport’s as well as renovations being done at the old Sears auto shop property. He said SVRTA’s ridership to that area is up.

“Things are happening up there but there’s no where to walk,” he said, later adding that they “want to look at improvements to pedestrian traffic … we want to enhance and improve access for pedestrians (along with) safety.”

Neither project was funded in the 2024 proposed budget.

Council was reminded that they’ll hear budget presentations from Water Supervisor Jim Jenkins and Sewage Supervisor Chuck Murphy prior to their Oct. 31 meeting, after which Finance Director Dave Lewis and City Manager Jim Mavromatis will start “scrubbing the books” to figure out how much of a cash carryover they’ll have.

Mavromatis pointed out the impact of labor agreements being negotiated with police and firefighters is a big unknown. He said they’re still at the bargaining table with police. Negotiations with firefighters will follow.

“Decisions (on those) have to be made,” he said. “It’s going to affect our budget.”

Mavromatis told council there’s “a lot of things we have to consider with the budget, but that’s why you’ve been given copies” of departmental worksheets to review.

“Look at those, study those,” he advised council. “The things that you want done, call me or call Dave then we’ll tell you where to stick it.”

Once they have all the numbers, Mavromatis said he and Lewis will be sitting down to figure out where they’ll need to make cuts.

“Our goal is, No. 1, to end the year in the black, which I think we are and, 2, based on next year’s budget, will that still keep us in the black?” he said.

Earlier, Lewis had told council he expects things to be tight.

“I think we’re going to have a hard time balancing this year,” he’d said, saying revenues look to be flat.

Also Tuesday, council signed off on legislation authorizing Mavromatis to contract with Ohio Department of Transportation for the Sunset Boulevard Resurfacing Project and to execute a sub-recipient grant agreement with Urban Mission Ministries for use of Community Development Block Grant funding for continuation of an existing microenterprise assistance program.

Dolak said the resurfacing project is not scheduled to begin until May 2025. The total project cost is estimated at $1.6 million, with the bulk of that funded by the state and federal governments. The city’s share will be around $100,000.

First reading was given an ordinance authorizing Mavromatis and Recreation Director Lori Fetherolf to spend up to $25,000 more to equip the fitness room at the MLK Center.

To avoid scheduling conflicts with the upcoming general election and Steubenville Lights Up the Night celebrations, council voted to reschedule two upcoming meetings: The Nov. 7 meeting was moved up one day, to Nov. 6, and the Nov. 21 meeting was moved up one day to Nov. 20.