YOUNGSTOWN – While negotiations with the union representing Youngstown street department workers went smoothly, getting the new contract approved by city council didn’t.

That’s because Councilman Jimmy Hughes, D-2nd Ward, voted against the contract at Wednesday’s meeting and Councilwoman Amber White, D-7th Ward, was absent.

That left only five members voting in favor of the three-year deal. For council legislation to be approved by emergency measure, it needs at least six favorable votes.

With only five members voting in favor of the contract, the deal will have to wait 30 days to take effect — though that could possibly occur about a week earlier.

Hughes initially refused to vote to suspend council rules to approve the contract via emergency, which would have allowed the deal to take effect as soon as the board of control ratifies it.

With only five members voting for the emergency clause, the contract was initially just given a first reading Wednesday.

But Finance Director Kyle Miasek said if city council didn’t take any action on the contract, it automatically takes effect under state law 30 days after the union ratified it, which was about a week ago.

Hughes then agreed to vote to allow council to vote by emergency measure. After that, he voted against the contract.

Without six votes, the contract has to wait 30 days to take effect. But it’s unclear if that is 30 days from when the union voted to ratify or 30 days from council’s Wednesday vote.

Asked after the meeting why he voted against the street department union contract, Hughes said, “I have my constitutional right to vote,” and said he had no other comment.

Hughes’ vote is in contrast to the city administration’s negotiations with the 29-member union.

It took only two bargaining sessions for a three-year deal to be approved.

At council’s finance committee meeting before its full council meeting Wednesday, Kevin Flinn, the city’s buildings and grounds commissioner, talked about how “proud” both sides are about the contract being unanimously ratified by the union and that there hasn’t been any grievances filed by the union in the past four years.

“That speaks volumes about what we do with the department,” Flinn said.

Steven Anzevino, president of the Teamsters Local 277 which represents the street department union, recently said having “only two sessions is unheard of.”

The union’s contract is retroactive to Jan. 1 so members will have to wait to get raises and additional pays until the deal takes effect.

The union agreed to a 2.5% salary increase for this year, 4% for 2026 and 2.5% for 2027.

The raises for this year and next year are in line with what other city unions have received. The street department is the first city union to negotiate a raise for 2027.

In addition to the raises, the street department union members will receive $600 safety bonuses every six months, the uniform allowance for steel-toe boots was increased from $175 to $225 annually, exposure pay went from $805 to $1,000 annually, and those with a Class A commercial driver’s license will get a $1,300 annual bonus from $1,100 in the old contract and those with Class B licenses will get $650 annually, up from $250.

There was a long and bitter dispute during the last contract negotiations, but both sides said they had moved past that.

SPEED CAMERA MONEY

Council also voted Wednesday to repeal legislation to spend $211,251 to purchase three vehicles to be used by the Youngstown school district’s resource officers with money collected from the city’s speed camera program in school zones.

That legislation and two other ordinances related to the speed camera money will have to wait 30 days to take effect because only five members voted in favor of them.

Councilman Pat Kelly, D-5th Ward, abstained from voting for the legislation because of a conflict of interest. Kelly serves as the school district’s chief of security.

He voted to permit council to suspend its rules and vote by emergency measure, but with White absent, only five members backed the ordinances.

That’s not going to matter for the $211,251 vehicle request because the money was never allocated.

But the school district is going to have to wait 30 days before a request to spend up to $56,000 of the speed-camera money to buy three metal detectors the city would own and permit the school district to use.

The third piece of legislation was to formally appropriate the money for the metal detectors and amend it to omit funding for the vehicles.

The city collected $596,878 in the speed camera fund when the program lasted for a few months in 2023 and then received $116,174 for citations between Sept. 18 and Nov. 30 of last year.

But the city is greatly struggling to spend the money from the fund as the state restricts it to be used only for school safety resources.

To date, the city has spent just $52,000, approved Nov. 20, to purchase a surveillance trailer with two cameras from Blue Line Solutions, which manages the speed cameras, from the $713,052 in total money collected from the speed citations.