What do the Ironton City Council and the Boy Scouts have in common?

They want to be prepared.

The council will hold a special meeting at 7 p.m. today in the city center to discuss what actions the city will take should the proposed $10 municipal fee fail in the November general election.

If the fee fails, the city would have to cut, by most estimates, $500,000 from its operating budget to keep from going into the red.

The strategy for those cuts, often referred to by city officials as &#8220Plan B,” has been rumored to include everything from abandoning the city's police force, to switching to a volunteer fire department.

At its meeting Thursday, the council and the mayor denied that any discussion had taken place about specific departments that would be cut, but would not deny that any department would be fair game in the effort to make up the budget shortfall.

&#8220What I hope to accomplish is at least some more awareness of the possible things that could happen next year if this fails,” said Council Chairman Jim Tordiff, who called the meeting. &#8220But obviously it will be a new council's decision.”

That council, which will be elected in November, will probably have to decide what the city will have to do to make up the $500,000 difference when it takes over Dec. 1.

&#8220(The current council) could make those decisions, but I don't think that any council with only a month left would decide something that the next council will just have to live with,” Tordiff said. &#8220But I guess they technically could do that.”

The council will be looking for suggestions from the public, but primarily Tordiff wants everyone to be aware of some of the possible consequences should the $10 fee fail.

&#8220I don't want to scare people, but I think the worst thing that could happen would be that the fee would fail, council would do something drastic and then the public would say ‘Well, I didn't know you were going to do that, maybe that would have changed my mind,'” Tordiff said.