The Jamestown City Council during its October 2019 Voting session on Oct. 28, 2019.
JAMESTOWN – It’s going to be busy night Monday at City Hall as the Jamestown City Council holds its monthly voting session and considers a number of resolutions to vote on.
Highlighting the 7:30 p.m. meeting is the finalization and vote on the 2020, $36.6 million Jamestown City Budget.
Jamestown City Councilman Tony Dolce (R-Ward 2)
The council will likely use a $150,000 savings identified in the budget earlier this month to decrease the city’s tax levy. According to City Finance Committee Chairman Tony Dolce, the cut to the tax levy would result in a reduction in the tax rate of about $0.22 per thousand.
“It would be a slight, decent tax decrease. It would put us under the constitutional tax limit. It’s not really enough money where we can go out and spend and add a bunch of things back to the budget, but on the other hand, for a long time we’ve been on this threshold and it would be nice to give something back,” Dolce said during last Monday’s council work session.
The current tax rate for city tax payers is $23.85 per thousand assessed value. If all the $150,000 in savings is applied toward reducing the tax levy next year, the new tax rate would be $23.63 per thousand. That’s an annual savings of $22 for property valued at $100,000.
The James Prendergast Library had been hoping the city would restore additional funding for their budget beyond the $60,000 earmarked in the mayor’s budget proposal, but it appears there isn’t enough support among the nine-member city council to make that happen.
ANNEXATION RESOLUTION TO BE CONSIDERED
In addition to voting on the city budget, the council is also scheduled to act on a resolution “regarding Dow Street Annexation request by City of Jamestown Board of Public Utilities.”
Eddie Sundquist
Last week the BPU voted to continue the effort to pursue annexing the property, dedicating over $100,000 in funding from the electric division toward legal costs associated with the lawsuit. Now the city council must give its approval on moving forward with the annexation.
However, mayor-elect Eddie Sundquist has said he would prefer the city council hold off on considering the annexation until after he takes office in January and has said he will appear before the council tonight and request it table the annexation proposal.
“I’ve already asked the current city council respectfully to table the [annexation] resolution until after the first of the year and I will also be publicly asking them that at the next council meeting,” Sundquist said on Friday morning when discussing his transition effort. “I think there needs to be time to talk to residents and community members about whether this action is something we should continue to take.”
The city council will also act on approving the purchase of a number of vehicles for the city’s DPW fleet as part of the $12.6 million Smart City Capital Investment program that was approved earlier this year.
Monday’s council meeting begins at 7:30 p.m. in city council chambers with a short work session scheduled for 7 p.m. in the mayor’s conference room. Both meetings are open to the public.
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