Marietta City Council discusses emergency shelter and Start Westward monument
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Marietta City Council discussed an emergency homeless shelter, the Memorial to the Start Westward of the United States, permanent parking and parking rates Monday evening.
City Council held its Public Lands and Buildings; Planning, Zoning and Annexation; and Police and Fire committee meetings Monday.
During the meetings, Southeastern Ohio Port Authority Director Jesse Roush gave an update to council on the location of the emergency shelter and who would purchase the building for it.
Since November, council has been discussing a shelter to be used by people displaced from their homes after a flood or fire and for homeless people.
Roush said the proposed location for the shelter is the old Berkshire Hathaway office building at 315 Third St. in Marietta. He has talked to the owners and negotiated a purchase agreement for the building.
Roush said the purchase would take 18 months, with the option of adding six months if needed, and would require a $38,000 down payment. There would be interest-only payments for the first six months, which would total around $4,500. Then payments from month six to month 18 would total around $19,000 and payments from month 18 to 24 would total another $15,000 or so. A balloon payment of $140,000 or more would be due at the end of the 24 months.
Washington County auditor records show the building is owned by Theodore F. Gaston and Donna S. Gaston, trustees, and that it was appraised at $117,240 in 2023.
The Washington County Homeless Project is working on getting the emergency shelter going. Community member Patricia Peoples said an organization can write a grant for half the cost of the shelter and donors would contribute to the other half.
Robin Bozian of the Washington County Homeless Project said the plan was for the Homeless Project to operate the shelter.
"If the city's going to operate it then obviously, we're going to say 'OK, fine'," she said. "We don't really care who does it as long as somebody does it, but if the city wants to own it and the city wants to operate it, then that's fine, you can do that, we'll bow out gracefully".
Marietta Safety Service Director Steven Wetz said it doesn't matter who owns the building, but the city doesn't have the people to operate the shelter.
Ward 1 Councilman Michael Scales mentioned he had concerns about the building being in a floodplain, a liability if the city owned it, what rules and regulations they would need to meet to make the building habitable and where the money to bring it up to code would come from.
Scales and Councilwoman Erin O'Neill said the city would not be buying or operating the shelter.
During the committee meetings council also discussed the Start Westward monument at Muskingum Park.
President of the Start Westward Memorial Society Joe Grimm said his organization originally put together a plan that involved moving the sandstone statue carved by Gutzon Borglum,
who sculpted Mt. Rushmore, that is part of the memorial, to a different location and replacing it with a bronze version of the statue.
But after asking the National Park Service for comment on the plan, he said, he learned that if the sandstone statue is moved it will no longer have historical significance and if a bronze statue replaces it, that would no longer be considered a Borglum statue.
He said the society voted to hire a conservator to develop a plan for them on how to deal with the statue and they would like to at least compare a plan to conserve the sandstone statue where it is versus replacing it with a bronze statue.
At-Large Councilman Harley Noland asked Grimm if he was aware that council passed a resolution asking for capital to move forward with a plan to replace the sandstone statue with the bronze one.
Mayor Josh Schlicher then asked if there can be another meeting about the issue since there are competing paths.
Grimm said he feels they should keep open the potential for making this a national memorial.
"At this point we feel like we have to do this," Grimm said. "We as a group believe we need to do this."
"I think it's time to move on," Noland said.
He pointed out that they already have a bid by a company to scan the sandstone statue so they can make the bronze statue.
There was no mention of any new legislation being written regarding the statue.
Council also discussed city-owned permanent parking places in the Parking Partners on Second Street. They are rented from the city from 8 a.m. to 5 p.m., but there's been a request to make them 24-hour parking spots.
"A landlord in downtown Marietta would like to lease permanent parking spaces in the Parking Partners lot," Noland said.
Committee members came to a consensus to make the change.
Council also discussed a possible increase on the monthly parking rate for city-owned parking spots. Noland said right now the amount is $25 and the last time it changed was 2011.
Noland suggested the council raise the rate to $35 a month. Council President Susan Vessels said that any rate change would start in 2025 and mentioned that they might want to talk to Washington-Morgan Community Action since several of their employees use city-owned spots.
Noalnd said he would write up legislation to raise the rate to $35 starting in 2025.
Michelle Dillon can be reached at mdillon@newsandsentinel.com