Members debate job creation incentive proposal.
The Washington City Council continued debate over a proposal Wednesday night that was introduced last month that would establish a Job Creation Incentive program to new businesses or current businesses established in the City of Washington Court House that either creates "new jobs" or relocating existing jobs into the city.
The ordinance on its second reading would establish the program based upon increase income tax revenue for the city who in turn would pay out an incentive to those eligible businesses that participate in the program.
Businesses would agree to retain those jobs created for 5 years & then could renew for a 5 year option.
The majority of those on council in favor of the ordinance stated that this may be a different approach to retaining or creating jobs from the past but that the city needs to look at different & creative ways themselves in keeping jobs from leaving the community & going elsewhere.
Those that spoke out against the ordinance stated they were all for keeping jobs but don't feel that enough thought & discussion has been completed before the plan was introduced or that additional revenue could be use in other areas of city services.
Denen also reported that residents have received notification that the city natural gas program will charge a rate of $.4911 cents per cubic foot. The price will be for the the November 2012 to April 2013 billing period. The level price will be about 20% lower than last year price. Residents who are already in the natural gas program don't have to do a thing.
Though we had been going through a dry period through most of the summer, it was reported to council that the water reserves remains in good shape. City officials estimate that the city is about 8 inches below normal in precipitation.
Wells located on the city farm are supplying about 750,000 gallons of water per day. The production of those wells is stable but they are dropping by 6 inches per week. Well number 8 was turned on August 21st to help & that is supplying 180,000 gallons per day. With cooler weather coming this will help in limiting evaporation from both the reservoirs which will extend the life of the stored water.
There is currently about 232 million gallons of water in storage. City officials stated that they will still monitor the situation & report to the public status updates.
Finally council adopted the appointment of both Allen Griffiths & John Rozmann to the Civil Service Commission with their terms expiring December 31st, 2015.
They passed the ordinance that adopts Senate Bill 321 that allows local Library Boards to increase the number of trustees from 6 to 7 individuals.
