Vote looming on controversial cameras in Steubenville

STEUBENVILLE -- Councilman Joel Walker introduced legislation Tuesday that would ensure Steubenville's license plate reader cameras remain in place, barring court intervention.

The proposal requires three readings before council can vote.

"If the United States Supreme Court turns around and decides these flock cameras are illegal or another court in the state of Ohio says it, I'll have no problem removing them," he said. "But at this moment they’re an excellent tool--they've been used to solve a shooting in the city, they’ve been used to solve other things."

Walker told Councilman Royal Mayo, the cameras' chief critic, that they'd had the very same discussion with the same arguments being raised for three consecutive weeks.

"That's why I made the motion, this is going on the third or fourth week you've (criticized) them and you have yet to bring up a motion to do away with them, so I did one to keep them," Walker said. "If you get enough people on council to vote (no), it will go down. But we keep talking about it every week, and it’s the same thing–you make the same argument, I make my argument, and that’s it. So (now) we can vote on it in three weeks.

Mayo, the only member to speak out against the LPRs, pointed out Walker had "sunshined an ordinance to continue something that we have no guidelines over." He said he hadn't felt he needed to schedule a vote to remove them because council never voted to put them up.

"They had no right to be up there from the beginning," Mayo complained. "For some reason, our attorney told us his legal opinion was that it’s an administrative move. It’s not. It’s policy. That’s why we’re voting to keep them up now. That’s a policy decision. A policy decides if we’re going to have flocks in our city, not an administrative move."

Mayo insists employees "should come to us when they want to make a policy decision, just like (they do) with other things much smaller than that."

Walker, though, told Mayo he's trying to micromanage city operations. Because the cameras were purchased with grant funds, council was never asked to earmark money for them.

"We don't micromanage, we don't put every policy in place," he said.

Mayo, though, said it "doesn't make sense to me, (but) we'll see how it turns out in court. ... I hope enough citizens end up coming here and saying we don’t want this in our community, and I hope we would listen like we do some other times."

City Manager Mike Johnson, meanwhile, said another 160 notices of property code violations will go out to property owners over the next few weeks, primarily targeting properties in the south end. The list includes the City of Steubenville, he noted.

"We’ve identified several city-owned properties that need to (come into compliance) and we will do that, also," he said, later pointing out about 200 notices of violation have been issued to date.

Mayo told council residents have come to him with concerns that "people are living at the North End park, sleeping there.

"Everybody has a right to be somewhere but you can't turn a park bench into a bed, you can't live there," he said. "...Kids are coming there and they can't play."

He said they need to find a way to "get them services."

Council also:

– Heard second reading of an ordinance authorizing the bidding and sale of various vehicles of the water and wastewater department deemed no longer fit for service, and first reading of ordinances authorizing Johnson to seek bids for the sanitary sewer drying bed and enclosure as well as necessary supplies for the service department for 2027.

– Recognized Chaise Scruggs for his track accomplishments this year at Harding Middle School. Scruggs was state champion in the 400-meter and also broke records in the 100-meter and finished runner-up at state in the 200-meter. Scruggs thanked friends and family as well as "the people in the community who pushed me to get there."

– Met behind closed doors after the public agenda to discuss the purchase and sale of city property.