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Mayor says strategic city plan in limbo

Mayor Derek Slaughter says while he wants to, he can't give City Council an accurate long-term plan for where city offices should be located.

Council says its vote on the sale of City Hall, condemned for three years, remains contingent on being provided with such a plan or seeing the mayor make steps toward giving them a vision or strategy.

"There are a number of factors that either people don't want to hear or don't want to take into consideration," Slaughter said.

"We can't borrow, we can't float a bond, no matter whether it takes $5 million or $10 million to make the building compliant with the building code and Americans with Disabilities Act," Slaughter said.

"We can't take on any more debt service," he said. "We have no idea how we would pay for that debt service and we have not had audits and we don't know how much money we have in the bank," he said.

Add to the mix that the city has a consent order with the U.S. Middle District Court to meet the ADA requirements if the building were to be repaired and reopened, Slaughter said.

Third-class city code allows the city administration to place the building up for sale, according to the city solicitor.

Additionally, two unions with workers in the now-condemned building were prepared to likely file grievances if they would have to return to city hall, a solicitor verified.

Since 2021, the city has occupied and paid rent for office space in Trade and Transit I, II buildings downtown, the former Peter Herdic Transportation Museum building on Nichols Place and at the public works building and River Valley Transit on West Third Street.

"If we were to say 'tomorrow we are going back into City Hall,' we can't ignore the Americans with Disabilities Act (ADA) upgrades," Slaughter said.

Councilman Jon Mackey has said that the ADA compliance repair is not cosmetic.

"Has anybody talked to the police, to the employees, to Streets and Parks, others that have actually worked in the building?" Slaughter asked.

"This isn't just (me) saying this. I listen to our employees. I listen to what they are saying," he said. "I can't sit here and say 'what money do we have so I know we can go back and rehab City Hall for $5 million, or we go purchase a building or we stay where we are?"

Instead, Slaughter said, his belief is the prudent step for the administration to take is to stay put until the city figures out what money it is dealing with, what is the city debt, how much is the city going to owe back to the state and federal governments -- in terms of transit money that may or may not be in the city accounts.

"That information is pertinent and relevant," he said. "I am not ignoring it. That is the start of it."

"So, 25 to 30 people in a 40,000-square-foot building... as an administration, our belief, our opinion, at this time there is no scenario we see -- whether $5 million to $10 million -- would make sense, unless we raise taxes significantly to do that," Slaughter said.

Additionally, there is a possibility of city assets ending up or transferring to River Valley Transit Authority.

"We are working with the Williamsport Parking Authority and others," Slaughter said.

The city is waiting on two pending state and federal investigations related to possible fraudulently spent finances and misappropriated use of grant funds.

"We brought Tracey Rash in," he said. Rash is manager of Government Finance Solutions, Harrisburg, a contractor, and council also recently approved the hiring of a director of finance, Heather Jacoby, as the finance office is going to implement software with the help of the information technology officials.

The software is expected to give data for the city and for the public to see.

"We could see money there, but it is not audited numbers," Slaughter said.

"We don't know where that money came from," he said. "Is it supposed to be there? We have state and federal audits ongoing; we are under state and federal investigation for almost four years," Slaughter said.

"We did pay ourselves rent in City Hall and that money was supposed to go to the upkeep and maintenance of the building," Slaughter said. "We are not sure where that went. Truly, it did not go to the upkeep and maintenance."

It is costing the city less to be in its rented office space than what it was paying to occupy City Hall, according to city officials.

"We do not know if we will or what we might owe PennDOT or the FTA and are waiting on results of a special FTA audit," he said.

Moreover, debt -- which is unknown -- is likely to increase, he said.

"We don't know what our debt is and our debt is most likely going to go up -- we can't ignore that," he said.