City Hall Minutes

Monday evening, there was a meeting to discuss next steps in the plans for West Federal Street. Carmen Conglose said the focus was on revisiting the plan, engaging urban planners, seeking more diverse input, address the input from the public August 6 meeting, then bring back to City Council. He estimated 3-4 weeks to redesign and pledged to work with Mill Creek Metroparks experts to select the proper tree species.

Mayor Williams emphasized the desire to examine all options while keeping to the original priorities: green canopy, parking, and infrastructure improvements.

Paul Harkey noted they were asked to design the original plan according to the approach on East Federal Street. (So, note it wasn't about finding the best approach for West Federal, it was assuming the Plaza's approach worked all the way along.) He also noted the city owns the street lights and breakers along West Federal and would likely partner with Ohio Edison once the rework is done, which would give the city a lower rate for the electricity (but would they pay somehow for renting or leasing the lights, or how does that work?).

Some other notes: any redesign would have to fit under the existing budget, which is somewhere in the upper $300s. The money is also tied to the electrical upgrades, though I'm not sure of the specific language.

The next meeting is currently scheduled for September 17. The Mayor spoke with a few of us after the meeting and encouraged us to work with the planning department to provide input into the process.

A friend who works for the City of Warren says the transcripts of city meetings are kept and published to a mailing list for public consumption. Is this true for Youngstown? Are transcripts and video of all meetings taken, and how can they be made available? I noticed two video cameras recording the proceedings as a secretary appeared to commit the record to paper. What happens with these recordings and records? We should let the sunshine in and make the transcripts, if not video recordings, available to the public always.