STEUBENVILLE — With just 13 days to go before Nutcracker Village and Christmas at the Fort kick off the 2024 holiday season, city officials moved forward Tuesday with plans to beef up the wiring vendors and event organizers need to grow the event.

With council’s approval, City Manager Jim Mavromatis said crews will be installing new wiring and new receptacles and “upping the amperage” to better serve the village’s needs.

“This needs to be done. The (wiring) is outdated … nothing more can really be attached to the circuit that’s already there,” he said, adding that, “Possibly next week Fourth Street will be blocked off so workers can get in there and run this line.”

T.S. Electric will do the work for $30,000.

Mavromatis also shared with event organizers the emphatic no AEP gave to the city’s request for permission to string lights from power pole to power pole or from power pole to buildings, saying “seasonal-type attachments” such as the overhead Christmas lights Nutcracker Village organizers had hoped to string across the street violate AEP’s pole attachment policy as well as the National Electric Service Code if installed on power poles.

“AEP does not allow certain banners flags or standalone seasonal decorations on their poles,” Mavromatis said. “We do have a pole agreement with (them) that deals with our banners and our decorative lights.”

That pole agreement has been in place for years, “so nothing more can be put on those polls. We cannot string anything from pole-to-pole or pole-to-building.”

He said down the road, the city “could theoretically put our own poles up and string lights from them, but it’s not going to happen this season.”

“It’s going to come with some cost, but it’s worth exploring,” Mavromatis said.

Council also heard from Mark Nelson, founder of Nutcracker Village, who offered up offered a retrospective on the festival’s humble origins 10 years ago as well as trash pickups and street sweeping schedules during the festival.

“Thinking back 10 years to when we started this, a lot of us … were involved in the Steubenville Revitalization group at the time or the activities that were going on,” he said. “A lot of the Nutcracker Village activities “came from that work and earnest desire to see Steubenville revitalized.”

This year’s festivities will feature 215 life-sized Nutcrackers.

Retiring Urban Projects Director Chris Petrossi also announced that Chipotle is finally ready to proceed with plans to build a restaurant in the Lowe’s parking lot.

“They do have site plan approval and are proceeding with their architectural plans,” Petrossi said. “I spoke to the developer last week and he advised me they hope to begin construction sometime in March.”

After delaying the wastewater departments CSO12 elimination project for weeks council finally authorized Mavromatis to enter into an amended agreement with HDR Engineering for the design work. The amended contract is for $198,918, down from the original estimate of $290,438.

Council sunshined legislation designating all budget surpluses on wastewater projects be reappropriated to the department’s headworks project and declaring an emergency, avoiding the possibility that the city would have to return any of its general fund ARPA money. The funds have to be allocated by the end of the year.

Legislation that would amend the Table of Organization as it pertains to the wastewater department also was introduced. The change, as proposed, would reducing the operator positions to four and add an assistant operator’s position, saving the city money on the base salary as well as overtime.

Final reading was given ordinances authorizing Mavormatis to contract with Arcadis for design services for the Belleview Tank rehabilitation project and amending the property maintenance code.

Council also learned the city’s preliminary budget will be presented Dec. 3, and voted to meet in executive session to discuss a personnel matter pertaining to salaries in the Parks and Recreation Department.