SitemapCity council will consider a proposal today to pay $174,261 to the Youngstown Neighborhood Development Corp. to supervise grass cutting, debris cleaning and boarding up at vacant structures.
The contract, which would need final approval by the board of control, is a 29 percent increase from the prior deal the city had with YNDC for the work. That contract was for $135,168. The new deal is retroactive to Friday.
The $39,093 increase is because the new contract is for 46 weeks while the old deal was for 35 weeks, said Ian Beniston, YNDC’s executive director.
YNDC will employ four supervisors, a management intern, about 15 workers from the Mahoning Columbiana Training Association – typically lower-income city residents between age 18 and 24 – and about a dozen AmeriCorps members.
In 2015, the first year of this program, 10,356 lawns at vacant properties were mowed and 553 empty structures were boarded up, Beniston said. That was with four supervisors and 20 MCTA workers.
In comparison, private contractors cut 2,900 lawns in 2014.
“This program was successful last year, and with more people and for a longer period of time, more work can be done,” said city Law Director Martin Hume. “We’re trying to maintain and beautify neighborhoods.”
The city sends bills of $150 per lawn to homeowners. While that’s more than $1.5 million in bills sent last year, the city collected only about $60,000 to $70,000.
Also today, the board of control will vote on contracts, worth about $4 million, to purchase garbage trucks and chassis to start its own residential garbage-collection service starting May 2.
The city expects to spend $2.2 million annually to run its garbage program. The city is finishing a $2.3 million contract at the end of this month that had Waste Management Inc. handle its garbage collection for 21,500 residential customers.
When the city sought a new contract with a private garbage hauler, the cost jumped to $2.8 million to $3.1 million leading to the decision to have the city do the work.
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