Marietta City Council practiced compromise and negotiation Wednesday as it moved to adjust budget recommendations for 2020 federal grant funds to more decisively focus on tackling blight.

“This is one of our best working sessions we’ve had since I’ve been in office. Tonight we’ve had some of the best problem solving as a team we’ve ever accomplished,” said Councilman Geoff Schenkel at the close of the budget review in finance committee.

Wednesday served as the final review and fiscal adjustment opportunity to a proposed 2020 budget for the city application to the U.S. Department of Housing and Urban Development for Community Development Block Grant funds.

Following years of continued concerns over blighted homes and defunct businesses lowering surrounding property values and allowing safety and security issues to be exacerbated, Wednesday Councilwoman Cassidi Shoaf proposed a shift of parts of existing program funding to pay for more than just demolition.

“I would just caution council to take baby steps,” said outgoing Development Director Andy Coleman, who referred to past practices of putting money in place to deal with blight but not spending all of that allocation, which put the city in jeopardy of losing federal support.

But Coleman said he was encouraged by the suggestions offered to better utilize housing program (within CDBG constraints) funding so long as the goals of impacting low-to-moderate income residential areas are still the focus.

So the discussion centered on the possible spends which could be made with the federal dollars to include demolition but not pigeon-hole that as the only option.

“The law director’s office seems a little too slow on completing our title searches to get this ball rolling,” said Councilwoman Susan Boyer. “Can we use CDBG funds to contract for title work to be done by an (outsourced) lawyer or title service?”

Coleman confirmed that would be an eligible spend of the federal grant dollars.

Coleman also confirmed that with a clear title, CDBG funds could be used to stabilize a historic structure which has fallen into disrepair or decay, and leveraged to encourage historic preservation efforts through combined public-private-nonprofit partnerships.

With those guides, all council members confirmed their support of a $10,000 shift from the emergency repair line item to slum and blight and a $5,000 shift from the Paint Marietta program to contractual services for title search work.

Shoaf had also proposed a shift of $5,000 from the Access Marietta ADA Sidewalk Repair program, with the intent of lowering the $30,000 budget for that program for 2020 to $25,000 — closer to the final spend of the last year in that program.

That proposal was not supported by Councilwoman Cindy Oxender, nor Councilmen Steve Thomas or Mike Scales because of city liability concerns when city trees uproot sidewalks.

“Each and every tree commission meeting I’ve attended, there’s a discussion on another sidewalk that has been heaved by a tree,” explained Oxender.

Coleman said an additional constraint of that program is when the money is used for sidewalks the entire block from ADA-accessible curb ramp to ADA-accessible curb ramp must be replaced to remain compliant to HUD.

Concluding the meeting, Scales also proposed a potential amendment to the budget to now be introduced for legislation next week at council’s regular business meeting on Sept. 5 at 7:30 p.m.

He asked for more details on planned spending for repair work requests on the Historic Harmar Walking Bridge and for requested repairs to Ridge and Quarry streets.

“We need to know what those requesting plan to do with the money to know whether or not those are eligible spends,” said Scales. “If they’re not, we’ll have another $13,000 potentially to amend and put towards blight.”

Also in attendance at the meeting and sharing their support of the coordinated effort to deal with blight were Eighth Street resident Shane Colvin, Third Ward candidate Bill Gossett and both Bill Reynolds, president of the Washington County Historical Society, and Wes Clarke, vice president of the historical society.

Janelle Patterson can be reached at jpatterson@mariettatimes.com.