Members of the Ironton City Council will have committee of the whole meeting at Monday at 6 p.m. And it will be a packed agenda for the group with 15 items to be discussed.
Vice Mayor Rich Blankenship explained that a committee meeting of the whole is when all city council members are invited to discuss things but there will be no vote on any ordinances or resolutions and there will be no audience participation.
Blankenship said that he felt a meeting like this was necessary because during the twice-monthly meetings, there isn’t enough time to discuss every subject that comes up.
“The regular meetings have been lasting several hours and we are not getting to these types of things to discuss,” he said. “I felt it was time to have discussions about these issues.”
Several of those issues deal with a piece of property in Ironton, the former Dayton Malleable property. Discussion will include the property’s lease with the Lawrence County Economic Development Corporation, a spec building on it and space needed for a lay down yard for pipes and the number of employees that business would have. There will also be a discussion on the potential for areas of that property needing to be cleaned up.
Other properties to be discussed are buildings such as Memorial Hall and the Brumberg Building, the construction of the second hotel in the Gateway Centre, riverfront property and a rent release on The Depot.
The committee will also discuss items brought up by citizens during regular council meetings including business licenses, a city planning commission and getting the review board for historic buildings in the city up and running again.
There will also be talk about the needs of the expanding Muth Lumber company.
In infrastructure needs, they will talk about getting zero percent loan for phases IV and V of the combined water and sewer line separation that was mandated by the Ohio EPA, creating a plan for the city’s storm sewage and water plants and a combined water plan for Coal Grove and Ironton.
“We haven’t had a committee of the whole meeting for a long time,” Blankenship said. “I know council members have had these items to be talked about, but it is kind of hard to get to them every other Thursday.”
The meeting will be in council chambers on the third floor of the Ironton City Center and is open to the public.