During its meeting on Monday, council voted to allow all requested events in 2018 at no charge. In edition, the estimated borough costs for events provided last week was recalculated at significantly lower rates.
In February, council announced the Ellwood City Relay for Life would be charged $550 to recoup borough expenses and that all other borough events would be required to pay borough expenses. At the agenda meeting on March 12, over 50 visitors urged council to reconsider and have the borough absorb event costs.
At the regular meeting on Monday, held in the auditorium to accommodates over 60 visitors, council announced several compromises, such as downtown events only paying for overage costs. However, after visitor comments and extended discussion, council member George Celli proposed a motion, seconded by Michelle Lamenza, to have the borough incur all costs for 2018 events.
Council member George Celli
Celli’s motion was met with a visitor round of applause and passed 5-2, with Rob Brough and Lisa Guerrera dissenting. However, the borough will accept a $2,000 donation from the Ellwood City Chamber of Commerce for Fall Fest.
Celli stated he felt there had been too much confusion and events had no chance to raise money. “I will not vote to charge veterans,” he said, referring to the Memorial Day Parade, which would incur the highest overage costs due to police overtime.
Although the motion passed, council expressed conflicting opinions for next year. Council President Judi Dici stated events will have to fund raise for 2019, which was met with a negative visitor reaction, while Celli advocated keeping events free.
Prior to the motion, council members weighed alternatives. Dici suggested borough events downtown would only be responsible for overage costs. For example, if an electric department vehicle had to be called in or borough overtime costs were incurred. Council member Marilyn Mancini announced that all events at Ewing Park prior to the official opening of the park on Memorial Day weekend will incur no shelter fees.
In a Facebook post, council members Rob Brough and Lisa Guerrera made several suggestions, such as providing groups a “detailed and itemized estimate of over-cost to the taxpayers prior to their event,” providing discounts for organizations that perform services for the borough, and not considering organized workdays by nonprofits, such as the Allegheny Aquatic Alliance’s Connoquenessing Creek clean up, as an “event.”
During the opening visitor remarks, representatives from several organizations spoke on behalf of borough events.
- Chamber of Commerce President Ray Santillo praised Ellwood’s volunteer community, calling volunteering a “lost art” and asked council to keep social media posts clean and positive.
- Stephanie Muntean pointed out how events have helped revitalize the downtown and are essential to aiding local businesses. She asked council to be “responsible stewards of the community” and “truly consider the ramifications” of requiring events to cover costs.
- Dave McQuade argued events provide value to the community, much of which is non-monetary, and and wondered how council will be able to handle more important challenges.
- Caleb Cragle criticized council for created an over complicated method to calculate event costs and for taking money away from businesses that need the revenue.
- Dawn Santagata said council was the “only one holding holding a gun to its head to cut the budget immediately” and compared recouping event costs to cutting off muscle instead of trimming fat. “This isn’t what taxpayers asked, wanted or expected,” she said.
- Scott Golmic, who organizes the Memorial Day Parade with his wife Caroline, felt council had acted without warning and structure. He mentioned two groups had talked of moving their events out of the borough and more may follow. However, he emphasized that progress had been made in talks with council the previous week.
- Brad Ovial of Ellwood City Revitalization, asked council to develop accurate itemized bills and communicate with groups in advance.
Event Cost Estimates Greatly Reduced
On Friday, Dici and council member Jim Barry met with the heads of borough departments, ranking police officer Dave Kingston, Chamber of Commerce leaders Santillo and Jillian Court, and Scott and Caroline Golmic. During the meeting, it was determined that the formula used to calculate borough expenses was not necessary and events could be run at much lower costs, in some cases up to 80 percent.
For example, Let There Be Lights dropped from $7645.16 to $829.28 and the concert series from $3206 to $137.25. The projected total costs for a dozen requested events, originally estimated at over $25,000, will now be less than $10,000. According to a table created by Court, the annual cost per taxpayer for events is less than $1.70, as opposed to the previous estimate of over four dollars.
According to Dici, department heads used a formula provided by previous Borough Manager Bob Villella to calculate borough expenses, which provided unnecessarily high projected costs. Dici said labor that could be performed on weekdays was charged at weekend overtime pay.
“This isn’t the fault of borough workers, and we can’t hold them nor council accountable,” Dici said, explaining that borough workers used the method requested by the previous borough manager and passed this information on to council.
In addition, Dici stressed that members of council do volunteer and asked visitors not to accuse members of not volunteering. Dici has participated in the Relay for Life for ten years and volunteers for the Lions Club during the Ellwood City Festival. Council member Lisa Guerrera added that she is active in volunteer organizations. A previous article indicated Guerrera didn’t volunteer. However, her statement was misquoted out of context.
“I will not vote to charge veterans,” he (Celli) said, referring to the Memorial Day Parade, which would incur the highest overage costs due to police overtime.
• Perhaps a good faith initiative from the police department to volunteer their services for the Memorial Day parade would demonstrate a positive community commitment. After all, it’s only one day.
• Have event organizers looked into contracting out security services for their events? There should be no problem finding people with a license to carry who should volunteer their services.
I love your suggestions Mary! If Council insists on charging organizations for their events, Allowing event organizers to hire their own security will alleviate the cost of Police weekend/overtime charges.
It disappoints me to read Council is blaming the previous Borough Manager, Whom they fired months ago, for the over estimated charges.. So you fired him, yet you trusted his work enough to continue using it? No. I’m not buying it.
You Council members with a re-election bid in sight should think carefully on all these new “ideas” being tossed before you. Even I can see what’s happening!
Wouldn’t it have been the prudent thing for the Council to have checked their facts before they acted? If it was necessary to fire the city manager , why would they have taken his figures at face value and then blame him for the mistake. It sounds like the council is being run by children ” I didn’t do it Bob did it” grow up and take responsibility for your actions
First, many thanks go to Mr. Celli for making the motion to not charge non-profits any fees for 2018 and Ms. Lamanza for seconding the motion. Finally, three additional council members agreed. As expected Mr. Brough and Ms. Guererra voted to keep fees in place.
Overall it was another disappointing evening spent trying to speak to our Council about all the benefits non-profits bring to our city. For a council that keeps telling everyone they are here to listen, when it comes to the non-profits they once again turned a deaf ear. Listening to businesses who fear they will need to close if events are moved out of Ellwood City, to simple facts and figures on how much the non-profits contribute to hosting our festivals, this council once again remained unmoved. Even a quick questionnaire indicating over 80% of residents supported the city contributing to non-profit events was ignored. This Council would rather see the festivals, parades, and events leave the city then invest a single penny to support the events that benefit every taxpayer in the city, as well as bringing in thousands of visitors who support our businesses as they spend time exploring Ellwood City. Our Council does not see the greater picture of how festivals and events bring potential home owners and new businesses to our city.
Council made corrections to the original figures on what it costs Ellwood City to participate in helping to fund the events. From $25,000, or $4.23 per taxpayer, to under $10,000, or $1.70 per taxpayer. The new amount is a tiny .0043 of the tax revenue budget. It is inconceivable to me that our Council does not see that cost as a top ten worthwhile expense. In making the correction Ms. Dici stated the council was not responsible for the error. They communicated the figure originally compiled by department heads and given to our former Borough Manager. It is inexcusable to affix blame on someone who no longer works for our city and cannot defend or even explain what the figures represented. Ms. Guererra chose to use figures from a terminated employee to communicate fees to taxpayers and fellow Council members. It took a meeting with non-profits questioning whether these original fees made any sense before anyone on Council investigated the figures and realized there was an issue. The fault in presenting inaccurate data, Ms. Dici, belongs with Council, not a former employee. We expect our Council Members to present accurate information to taxpayers and if that means checking, double checking, or triple checking, that is what you need to do. That is your responsibility.
Dawn Santagata
It is quite unfortunate how many of the borough council showed a total lack of knowledge about so much that is important. Those who viewed this meeting watched them vote to spend half a million dollars with out question, when it should have been removed from the agenda, thankfully our solicitor caught this blunder. Yet we’re ready to charge non profits to save money. This is a clear indication that a few of them are not meant to lead the decision making. LG is the most concerning, each time she speaks she proves to be the least knowledgeable, the weakest link.
This is definitely a small victory for the community and especially the non-profits, though Ms. Dici’s comments are unsettling. Somehow, she (along with some other council members) still does not see the larger picture. In 2019, we will be right back to where we started. Doing this in the name of “fiscal responsibility” is an easy win for council. Why not tackle some greater, more expensive items that actually bear a large burden on the budget? Hopefully progress can be made so that these organizations will not have to be a thing of the past.
This town needs some young individuals who want to run for council. We need a fresh outlook on things. I’d also hope that they have a larger capacity of understanding than the close mindedness of LG and RB. It is apparent they have no ability to see what good is, in comparison to outside agenda.
There are countless resources which outline how a community is awarded a most livable community.
What I’ve found in common is the alliance and cooperation among all levels of government. Not one entity can do it alone. Radical, one issue extremism is nonexistent in the success stories.
Q. What involvement have we had from the Lawrence County commissioners?
A. NOTHING, yet they get re-elected.
Q. What involvement have we had from our state representative?
A. NOTHING but distracting, overdramatic emotions seeking more “likes” on Facebook where opposing views are blocked and deleted. However, he and his two endorsed radical malcontent newcomers are good at dramatics.
There are federal and state programs to address our needs but he prefers to distract us from his failures.
Zelienople gets the grants; Ellwood doesn’t. Yet he wants re-elected.
Q. What involvement have we had from our state senator?
A. NOTHING. He hasn’t even set foot in Ellwood yet he gets re-elected. He is very fortunate though to have a Marcellus well and cell phone tower on his farm. You can see it from the turnpike; right next to his sign. It’s on the left, heading eastbound. You can’t miss it.
Q. What involvement have we had from our federal legislator?
A. NOTHING. He’s another one who hasn’t even set foot in Ellwood. He also wants re-elected.
Yes, we do need some young candidates on council with the same motivation and determination as the students from Marjory Stoneman Douglas High School in Parkland, FL. It is my hope that educators and parents spark this interest in Ellwood’s future.
I ran this past election to oppose the group that ran together. Unfortunately they had heavy financial backing. I will say that I was very blessed that the realtor association was on my side and helped with sending out literature. I intend to run again in the next election.
I wonder why there are no financial disclosure statements from the two nudniks?