ST. CLAIRSVILLE — A disagreement at the St. Clairsville City Council meeting Monday led to a decision to amend Ordinance 2025-06, removing an emergency declaration and allowing for three public readings of the proposed measure.

The ordinance is to authorize the council to increase the yearly compensation of all non-elected, non-union employees.

The disagreement did not stem from whether to pass the ordinance; rather, the disagreement was based on the fact that it was to be declared an emergency.

Councilman Don Vincenzo asked Law Director Joe Vavra why the ordinance needed to be declared an emergency.

“The reason we set it up as an emergency is that this is going to be retroactive and start at the beginning of 2025, so the closer we do it to the time of that the easier it’ll be for finance,” Vavra said.

Vincenzo replied that he was aware that when the city was audited by the Ohio Auditor of State that council was informed it was declaring too many ordinances to be emergencies. The auditor pointed out that when an ordinance is declared an emergency instead of undergoing three separate readings at open council meetings, the procedure doesn’t allow residents to have their voices heard if they have a comment or concern regarding the proposed legislation.

Councilwoman Terra Butler asked Vavra if he would be able to take the emergency wording out of the ordinance so council could hold three separate readings of the proposed ordinance.

“It doesn’t have to be an emergency, and just because it’s listed as an emergency, you all can still do the three readings. It doesn’t have to be treated as an emergency because it has the emergency language,” Vavra said.

Butler then asked, “So as far as when we get audited for stuff like that, when they see the emergency language in it, even if we spend three readings on it, it still changes the effective date at the end. And does that mean the same thing to them when they’re doing audits?”

Vavra responded that he believes the auditor would recognize whether three separate readings are held.

“I know when we went to the Ohio Municipal League, their comments on emergency legislation was, ‘You’re not giving your citizens the proper time to voice their points or their thoughts’ and especially when the auditors say we have too many emergency legislation, I’d like to see this go to the three readings,” Vincenzo added.

Vavra responded that he saw no issue with the emergency language being removed from the ordinance and for it to be read on three separate occasions.

Council President Jim Velas said he believed the emergency language would affect the legislation’s effective date.

“My understanding was, that if it has emergency language in it, even though it is read three times, what I was always told is it doesn’t take 30 days after, it takes place immediately,” he said.

Butler added that she believed the same.

Vavra responded that they were correct that with the emergency declaration, the ordinance can still be read on three separate occasions but be in effect immediately after the three readings and a vote to approve.

Velas then asked the council if they were in favor of removing the emergency language, and all members agreed that they were.

“I’m not in favor of it having emergency language,” Butler said.

Councilman Mike Smith added, “It’s retroactive anyway.”

Council members then verbally agreed the emergency language should be removed from the ordinance and that it should be read on three separate occasions. A first reading was held Monday.

Following that decision, Smith made a motion to reappoint St. Clairsville Service Director Scott Harvey. Harvey was named the new service director six months ago. When he was appointed, he was placed on a six-month probationary period and, after its completion, would either be reappointed or asked to resign. Council unanimously agreed that Harvey should be reappointed.