Washington City has two in mayoral race, four in council race
A Washington businessman, Mark Kennison, Republican, will challenge the city’s incumbent mayor, Scott Putnam, Democrat, for the four-year term in the Nov. 5 election.
Kennison, part owner of his family’s development company Kennison Strategic, said his main concern is bridging a “disconnect” between city officials and the community on a number of issues, including blight.
“A lot of good property owners are concerned with neighboring properties that are not maintained,” Kennison said. “It’s hurting their property values. They’ve called council offices and code enforcement and are not getting responses back. A lot of people are frustrated with that.”
In June, Kennison, who lives above his restaurant The President’s Pub, purchased the collapsed building at 15 N. Main Street and has expressed plans to completely demolish it and turn it into a parcel that can be developed. He now owns five properties on North Main. He said he wants the city to have a “stronger enforcement presence” in the downtown area.
“I think we’re in a position where tearing buildings down is our only option,” he said. “I think if we had stricter code enforcement, we could be proactive and save some of these properties instead of waiting for them to be torn down.”
The perfect example of this is when 15 N. Main St. collapsed, he said.
“I think that property in particular is an example of ineffective code enforcement that put people’s lives in danger,” he said. “If we don’t do anything to make sure the repairs are made, we’re not doing the taxpayers justice.”
That’s not the only “disconnect” Kennison said he hopes to address, should he be elected. He said citizens recently expressed a disconnect between the black community and police department, following an incident in which a 54-year-old resident, Don Ward, groundskeeper at the LeMoyne Community Center, was allegedly mistreated by a city police officer.
“If there are any parts of the community that feel disconnected from the council or the police department, they as a whole need to spend more time connecting and repairing those relationships,” he said, adding he would like to see more police training on “how to interact and address citizens in all situations.”
Instead of raising taxes, Kennison said he would like to focus on expanding the tax base in the downtown area. He said the city should look for ways to allow developers to share in state grant money for the development of vacant downtown buildings because that would “make that investment much more fiscally attractive to developers.”
Putnam, who’s running for his second term, said within the last four years, the downtown business district has welcomed 16 new businesses. He also said the city has put $175,000 – most of which was Local Share Account funds – into façade improvements to downtown businesses.
“We’ve really grown some of our livability in our city with the events at the pavilion, our holiday events like the Christmas parade, park events and improvements to downtown businesses,” Putnam said. “There are a lot of good things going on in the city, and our business owners should be very proud.”
Putnam said while blight is still a big issue for the city, officials have made strides. In 2016, the county redevelopment authority’s demolition list contained 42 houses in the city, he said. Earlier this month, that number was down to six. The continuing problem, however, is the number of rental units and the amount of “absentee” landlords, he said.
“Roughly 55% to 57% of our housing stock is rental occupied,” Putnam said. “Many of the owners of those rental units don’t live in our city.”
Putnam said while not all renters or landlords are the same, there seems to be “a lack of pride in the property,” which leads to a lack of maintenance.
“Ultimately, the responsibility is on the owner of the property, and pushing that responsibility to their renter is up to them,” he said.
He and other city officials have started discussions about rent-to-buy programs with potential tax break incentives or low-interest loans that would help convert renters into new homeowners, Putnam said.
“We want to do what we can to protect the renters too because they’re the residents of our city,” he said.
Another major issue for the city, Putnam said is an aging stormwater management system, which contributes to flooding problems and poor road conditions.
“We’ve spent a lot of money in emergency repairs to the system in the last two years,” he said. “It’s going to need upgrades.”
The city is working, in accordance with its Municipal Separate Storm Sewer System permit to monitor and map inlets to “have a better handle on where the most serious issues are,” Putnam said.
He said he’s hoping to apply for state grants and LSA money to fund the most essential upgrades to the system before they reach an emergency state, which would ensure residents and taxpayers don’t face an undue burden.
“The last two years we’ve raised taxes to keep up with rising costs,” he said. “This coming year, we don’t expect to raise taxes.”
Council
Four people are vying for one of two seats on the city’s council. The vacancies on council arose from the end of Kenneth Westcott’s term, as well as Monda Williams’ decision not to for reelection.
Westcott, a Democrat, hopes to retain his seat for a third term on council, having served 18 years in the city. He spent two years on council before he was elected to two terms as mayor in 1999. Then, he was elected to council in 2011, and won a second term.
“I’ve been a part of many administrations, but I think this is the best one I’ve worked with,” Westcott said.
Improvements to the stormwater management system are his greatest priority. He said while the city is happy to use LSA money for upgrades to the system, it’s not enough. He said he wants the city to begin a previously discussed stormwater fee for all properties including nonprofit organizations and churches. The revenue it generates would only be used for maintaining the stormwater system.
“Our infrastructure, our storm system is in bad shape,” he said. “We have to start taking care of these problems or they’re going to get worse. I know it’s seen as another tax, but it allows the city to receive money from the nonprofits that they normally don’t.”
He also wants to see the dilapidated building at the corner of North Main and West Chestnut streets redeveloped. It’s been vacant for decades, but also fenced off and boarded up because the roof has partially collapsed. He said there’s a $1.2 million federal lien on the building for taxes, but once that’s taken care of, the city wants to see development there.
“We have a couple developers that are interested, but we still don’t have control of that site,” Westcott said. “We’re working with the Citywide Development Corporation on that to try to take that over in the beginning of the year.”
The other Democrat running for a seat is Joseph Pintola, owner of Hungry Jose’s tavern and Julian’s Catering. He said he wants to “cut down” on taxes and clean up the blight, which he called a “detriment to business people.”
“It’s lowering your property value,” he said. “We need to increase our presence in the enforcement side and tear down these properties until we can develop them. It’s hard to entice new businesses to come to Washington, but we’re not as bad as people think we are.”
Pintola said he wants to allocate more money to demolish vacant residential and commercial properties.
“You got to take care of your fellow property owners,” he said. “You raise the taxes, you got to keep it looking nice.”
He said he also want to put more money into city roads, filling potholes, paving and resolving some of the stormwater drainage problems.
“For the roads, we need to get some more manpower and money,” he said. “That’s on my agenda – putting more money into the street department -because that’s what I’m hearing people complain about.”
The two Republicans running for council are Joseph DeThomas, who works at Komatsu Mining and is a member of Teamsters Local No. 585, and Dana Hammond, a district manager for BFS Companies.
DeThomas wants to see improvements to code enforcement, by looking into the feasibility of hiring a company to help handle some of the cases.
“We have one man right now, and I don’t believe he can do it by himself,” he said. “He’s not able to effectively do his job because he’s so busy.”
DeThomas said the city’s blight problem could be rectified with more investment. He said he wants to put together packages or lists of what investors or new property owners may need, like forms they would need to fill out for permits and what tax breaks are available to them.
“We have people starting to invest in this city, but I believe the city needs to work with them more,” he said. “This would greatly improve the relations between the city and the business community.”
DeThomas said he wants to find ways to reduce taxes, and certainly to stop raising them.
“They’ve raised taxes four times in the last four years,” he said. “I don’t believe we can keep doing this.”
One means of lowing taxes that he’d like to explore is the possibility of creating regional fire and police services.
“They are a big expense for the city, and it would help reduce the burden on the city taxpayers to make it more widespread to other municipalities,” he said.
Hammond also said she wants to stop raising taxes, and instead increase the tax base by getting people to stay in the city, “not graduate from school and leave.”
Like Kennison, Hammond mentioned a “disconnect” between city officials and the community.
“We need to see what our citizens want by opening our doors and really truly listen to the people,” she said. “I think the community feels like it’s not being done.”
She said blight is another issue that needs to be addressed, but that it shouldn’t be a “huge expense” to the city or its taxpayers. She said the city could partner with the “40-plus churches” and other nonprofit organizations to “clean up the streets, parks, and playgrounds” and some of the vacant lots in the city.
“I know we’re losing a tax base because people are moving away,” she said. “We need to want people to come here and move here.”
DEMOCRAT
Name: Scott Putnam
Age: 48
Residence: Washington
Education: Eisenhower High School in Warren County 1989, bachelor’s degree in civil engineering from West Virginia University 1993
Occupation: Project manager/engineer for Alex Paris Contracting Inc.
REPUBLICAN
Name: Mark Kennison
Age: 36
Residence: Washington
Education: Trinity High School 2002, took business administration classes at Washington & Jefferson College and Waynesburg University
Occupation: Owner of President’s Pub, part-owner of Kennison Strategic development company
DEMOCRAT
Name: Kenneth Westcott
Age: 58
Residence: Washington
Education: High School diploma from Immaculate Conception 1980
Occupation: Self-employed general contractor
Name: Joseph Pintola
Age: 69
Residence: Washington
Education: Washington High School 1957, took classes at Robert Morris University and Lorain County Community College in Ohio
Occupation: Owner of Hungry Jose’s Bar and Restaurant and Julian’s Catering and Banquet Facility
REPUBLICAN
Name: Joseph DeThomas
Age: 58
Residence: Washington
Education: Cannon-McMillan High School 1979, technical degree in welding from Airco Technical Institute
Occupation: Works for Komatsu Mining and is a member of Teamsters Local No. 585
Name: Dana Hammond
Age: 38
Residence: Washington
Education: Avella High School 1999, bachelor’s degree in business management from Waynesburg University
Occupation: District manager of BFS Companies