Monessen mayor seeks Health Mart building grant

By KRISTIE LINDEN
klinden@yourmvi.com

Monessen City Council had another disagreement this week about an action the mayor took without first discussing it with the rest of council.
This time, Mayor Matt Shorraw applied for a Blight Remediation Program Grant for more than $300,000 for the former Health Mart building at 500 Donner Ave.
A motion was on the agenda for Tuesday’s meeting for council to approve a resolution authorizing Shorraw and city Administrator John Harhai to execute all documents related to the grant, but council members Tony Orzechowski and Lois Thomas questioned how the grant came to be in the first place.
Thomas said she didn’t know if she would have applied for the grant to help that building, but she thought council was supposed to decide these kinds of things together.
Thomas has long pushed for Shorraw to work with council rather than to come to council meetings with initiatives or motions that some council members are hearing for the first time minutes before a vote is called.
“Any one of you is welcome to write a grant,” Shorraw said.
“No, no,” Thomas said, “here’s my thing. This is a council correct? We make decisions for the City of Monessen as a whole, right?”
Shorraw said the motion was on the table for council to decide on by voting.
“We don’t need to discuss, to discuss, to discuss, to discuss, to vote,” Shorraw said.
“OK, but as a council we should discuss what’s best for the city as a whole,” Thomas said.
“If I didn’t want you to know about it, I wouldn’t have sent you the information,” Shorraw said.
Shorraw said Thomas and Orzechowski asked about the grant before Tuesday’s meeting. Thomas said that was because they saw it on the agenda and knew nothing of it before that time.
Thomas said these things should be brought before council before they’re done.
“You’re all more than welcome to write a grant, you’re nitpicking,” Shorraw said.
“This is not nitpicking,” Thomas said, “this is what a council does. It’s not just you, Matt.”
“You’re all more than welcome to contribute,” Shorraw said.
That comment got a small groan from the little crowd at the meeting.
Orzechowski asked why the rest of council wasn’t told before the deadline of the grant. Shorraw said he wrote the grant in the three days leading up to the July 31 deadline.
“You can’t go half cocked and do whatever you want to do,” Orzechowski said, asking Solicitor Tim Witt if Shorraw can write a grant without seeking approval of council.
Witt said he hadn’t seen the grant but that Shorraw couldn’t obligate the city financially without council’s approval.
Such grants typically come with a required match from the municipality in the amount of 10%, which would mean Monessen would need $30,000 to accept the grant. Shorraw said the city would not accept the grant unless the program would agree to waive the matching fee.
Witt also said the city can turn down the grant without repercussions.
“Let me ask you a question, though,” Thomas said to Witt, “Do you think this is proper? That Matt is saying go and apply for whatever grants you want, and that’s fine? But you think it would be OK me to go out and just write this grant and put in on (the agenda) and during a council meeting and just have them vote on it without issue?”
Witt said anytime there is a grant, “the best practice is to go to council and for council to review and then approve it and apply for it. I think in this situation what I’m hearing Matt saying is the deadline was an issue.”
Shorraw said he wrote the grant in such a way that council would have to approve the resolution at this week’s meeting in order for the grant application to be valid.
Witt said the grant isn’t effective until council approves it.
Councilman Don Gregor asked how much the grant would be for and Shorraw said it would bring in $300,000 and Gregor said, “and that would be to alleviate blight on the 500 block of Donner Avenue?”
Shorraw said the money would be used to stabilize the Health Mart building to make it more attractive to sell it, as it is owned by the city.
“It is, but I question why we’re putting money into a money pit,” Orzechowski asked.
Shorraw said after talking to several engineers and people he knows who are familiar with that kind of work, he believes the Health Mart is salvageable.

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