SALEM — The city council approved a new economic development contract with the Sustainable Opportunity Development (SOD) Center in its meeting Wednesday.

The city’s contract with the SOD Center has a term of two years at an annual price of $85,000 and is paid in quarterly installments of $21,250 and will expire at the end of the year. City council Wednesday voted unanimously to approve a resolution authorizing Mayor Cyndi Baronzzi Dickey to enter a new agreement with the SOD Center with the emergency clause, meaning the resolution will bypass the usual 30-day waiting period to take effect immediately.

Discussed at length in a meeting of the economic development committee on Oct. 14, the new contract will take effect in January and maintain the current price tag, with the only change being an increase in term to three years rather than the current two, meaning that the city will retain the SOD Center’s services for economic development through 2029.

The city council also held the third and final reading of a new ordinance levying motor vehicle license taxes for the city of Salem in both Columbiana and Mahoning counties for passage, voting unanimously to approve the ordinance. The ordinance will raise the city’s permissive license tax to the maximum amount allowed under revised code in 2027, meaning that starting Jan. 1, 2027 city residents living in Columbiana County will see a $15 increase, while those in Mahoning County will see a $10 increase for a new total of $20 per vehicle in addition to the annual registration fee charged by the state.

While the city council previously approved an ordinance that would have implemented the same increases in its Sept. 15 meeting, it was rejected due to its inclusion of the emergency clause, requiring the city council to approve the new ordinance. At that prior meeting Dickey explained that while the city had initially intended to split the increase over the course of two years in increments of $7.50, there had been an issue with the ordinance language and that in the interim the deadline to implement the first incremental increase in 2026 had passed, so the full increase was being added in 2027.

Other matters approved included a resolution to adopt the Columbiana County Hazard Mitigation Plan and the Salem Area Chamber of Commerce’s event application for the upcoming Christmas Parade at 6:30 p.m. Dec. 4.

The city council will meet next at 7 p.m. on Nov. 18.