The increase in taxes in the City of Bradford was finalized at
Tuesday’s meeting of city council, with Councilman Tom Riel casting
the lone dissenting vote on the 2007 budget with a tax increase of
one mill.

“I don’t think the City of Bradford has done everything
possible” to cut spending, Riel said before voting against the tax
increase.

One audience member clapped her hands and agreed with Riel.

The budget was approved by all the other council members and
Mayor Michele Corignani.

“I guess I’m going to vote yes because no one on this council
was able to find a way to come up with” ways to cut spending,
Corignani said.

In November, Riel suggested several areas in the city government
where he felt cuts could be considered to offset a possible
increase in taxes. His ideas, one of which was taken by many to be
an attack on the city’s firefighters, were greeted with open
hostility. None were adopted by city council.

After council approved the budget, the next item on the agenda
was to vote on salaries for 2007. After voting to approve the
listed salaries, Corignani snapped, “Good thing we passed the
budget. We wouldn’t be able to pay those wages.”

Also at the meeting, council approved a list of meeting dates
and times for 2007. For city council, the meetings will remain the
second and fourth Tuesday of each month, but will move to 7 p.m.
instead of 7:30 p.m.

City Clerk John Peterson explained the change to 7:30 p.m. had
happened years ago to accommodate a work schedule of one of the
council members who is no longer on the board. The current members
were polled regarding the start time of the meeting and were in
favor of beginning at 7 p.m., Peterson said.

In other business, council:

* appointed Sara Andrews, executive director of the Office of
Economic and Community Development, to the board of the Bradford
Economic Development Corp.;

* approved payment of $4,832 from the OECD’s Old City Hall
Project account for the installation of carpeting on nine flights
of stairs and four landings at Old City Hall; and

* approved payment to EG&G Inc. in the amount of $1,735 from
the OECD’s Streetscape account for the preparation of additional
documentation to be submitted to the Pennsylvania Department of
Transportation to support a request for $750,000 of additional
Hometown Streets funding for the Impact Bradford streetscape
project.

Corignani ended the meeting by wishing everyone a Merry
Christmas and Happy New Year, and then added that she was asking
everyone to consider “their resolution for 2007. They can be part
of the solution or they can be part of the problem.”