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STEUBENVILLE -- A new roof for the Martin Luther King recreation center is likely to cost around $240,000, but the good news is city officials are optimistic most -- if not all -- the cost could be covered by grants.
City Manager Mike Johnson said the engineering work alone will cost around $34,000, but it will be covered by a grant secured through Mayor Ralph Petrella's participation in the Mayor's Partnership for Progress.
"We got an estimate from a construction company, a roofing company, that it would be roughly $200,000 to replace the weight room roof and the gymnasium roof," Johnson said.
Johnson said they've already secured a $25,000 grant award from the Dover-based Kimble Foundation. They've also applied for grant funding through the Ohio Department of Natural Resources.
"And there are a couple local foundations that have indicated to me their desire to participate and encouraged me to apply," he said. "It's just their applications aren't open yet (but) we will, at some point next year, replace both of those roofs."
Johnson said their goal is "to obtain all the outside financing we can."
Back in 2019, he pointed out a contractor was brought in to address another MLK roof problem. Johnson said they had the contractor come back to make sure the roof work his crews did weren't playing any part in the current problems.
"Their roof is fine," he said. "It's the weight room roof (that's causing problems) -it's bubbled or rolled and the gymnasium, it looks like it's seen its useful life. So the estimate they gave us to put the roof in good condition -- I think it was something like $43,000 for the weight room and $150,000 for the gymnasium."
Disagreements continue over the city's license-plate reading cameras supplied by Flock and how police secured grant funding for the cameras.
Councilman Royal Mayo contends he was unaware the department had even applied for the funding and insists it should have been brought to council first.
Councilman at large Joel Walker, however, produced a list of at least 26 grants department heads applied for without consulting council in advance, including the Kimble grant for the MLK roof. replacement project.
"To my knowledge, there are (a number) of grants that departments got that do not require matching funds so they don't come across our desk here. Those funds they apply for, they get them, they use them as they see fit -- that doesn't have any effect on us allocating any money to them," Walker said.
Mayo insisted that, "Money that comes to this city, no matter where it comes from, this body has to accept it and reallocate it to that department to do whatever they're going to do with it. That's how it works."
"We did it wrong, and that's why I want (information), because we didn't do that," he insisted.
"Well, we haven't done it for the fire department, we haven't done it for parks and recreation," Walker replied.
"And if somebody's interested in that, they can...request (the documentation)," Mayo said. "I'm interested in this and I want the records because I don't think we did it right and we shouldn't have got that money and did what we did with it. If somebody has a question about parks and rec, or somebody has question about the fire department, the water department, street department -- request it. I'm requesting this (information) because I want to see it."
The lease on the LPR cameras in the city is up for renewal in March. Police Chief Wes Crawford has requested funding to renew their license, saying the cameras have saved lives and helped close cases.
Johnson said the city contract talks are already underway with firefighters and police.
At Tuesday's meeting, council will hear the first reading of an ordinance authorizing Johnson to purchase a property at 145 S. 3rd St. and provisions in the city code addressing appeals to Steubenville's vacant property ordinance.
Law Director Costa Mastros said finding volunteers to serve on appeals boards is difficult, "so instead of creating and constituting a new board, we're going to use the (existing) Board of Building & Engineering Appeals."