Following the city’s comprehensive street tour Saturday, talk of infrastructure improvements took center stage at last night’s Athens City Council meeting.
Mayor Paul Wiehl was especially interested in an abandoned gas station on Columbus road, which would be absorbed by the state if the city doesn’t accept the land by 5 p.m. Friday.
“We’re trying to figure out what it would cost to remove underground gas tanks; my biggest worry is that we find massive contamination,” Wiehl said. “Nobody else has stepped forward to look into this, so this is my concern.”
Council will decide whether or not to take the property in a special hearing tentatively scheduled to take place about 8:30 p.m. Thursday. The session must have at least five members present to establish quorum and accept the property.
“If the city has not taken it, the state will take it and we don’t know what they’ll do with it,” said Councilwoman Chris Fahl, D-4th Ward. “Once we have the property, we could dispose of it as we see fit.”
Also stemming from the street tour Saturday, council discussed pending improvements to city sidewalks.
“Last year the city did a comprehensive survey of the sidewalks,” said Councilman Elahu Gosney, D-At Large. “We have a compressive map that shows which areas have more problems, so we can set our priorities that way.”
Sidewalk improvements scheduled to take place this summer include an $80,000 project on Grosvenor Street, which would be split evenly between the city and property owners, Gosney said.
Also discussed at the council meeting was the city’s inability to monitor all delinquent taxpayers. Council is considering consulting with the Cleveland-based Central Collection Agency to more closely analyze the city’s delinquent tax base.
For their services, the agency would impose a fee that ought not be higher than five percent on all taxes found through the services, Income Tax Administrator Tina Timberman said.
“If they collected $100 for all of Athens, they wouldn’t charge us more than five dollars for their services,” said Timberman. “But the money they collect for us would be what we couldn’t find on our own.”
The city doesn’t have the manpower to knock on everyone’s doors about their taxes, said Athens City Auditor Kathy Hecht.
“We’re not out to harass people,” she said. “But we have a responsibility to collect income tax from the people of the city of Athens. We’re really going after a small percentage of filers.”
The program would be more targeted at residents who don’t work in the city of Athens who may not know they owe the city taxes.
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