By STEPHANIE ELVERD

Staff Writer

EAST PALESTINE — Keeping the lines of communication open with regular updates on the village’s recovery progress in the wake of February’s Norfolk Southern train derailment was the hot topic at the East Palestine Council meeting on Monday.

East Palestine resident and community activist Erin Stauffer asked council to consider more effective ways to keep the community informed of progress and setbacks and dispel rumors that have taken over social media.

“People don’t know what’s going on and when they don’t know what’s going on, they make it up,” Stauffer said as she addressed council members. “We are seeing stuff all over Facebook that’s not even factual. Is there anything that council or the village can do to make sure that information is fed to us so we know these discussions are happening?”

Mayor Trent Conaway reported the village and council are actively working on addressing communication concerns.

“We are teaming up with a PR firm not for public relations but to try to get information out there,” he said. “We realized we have dropped the ball on this. We’ve been discussing things over the last couple of months but we wanted to make sure we choose the right PR to go with.”

Stauffer used the meeting to ask the village council to give detailed updates on several issues that have residents concerned. Among the requested details were an in-order list of council’s priorities moving forward in relation to the rail disaster,

“Currently, the first priority is cleanup, getting the actual site cleaned up,” Conaway said. “From there, we want to make the village whole for all the expenses that occurred during this. We want to continue to work with business owners and make them whole. We have to take care of our businesses or we won’t have a town. Third, hopefully, we want to beautify the town a little bit when our health concerns are addressed and everything is cleaned up then we will try to bring people back into town.”

Conaway reported that several events — the Mother’s Day Tea Party (May 13), the East Palestine Street Fair (May 24) and a walk/run (June 10) — are on tap in the village. Projects to improve the village are also planned. Those include improvements to the park and plans to beautify downtown. However, the village still has to consider the ripples created by the derailment.

“We are moving forward with some events in town, but we are trying to be cautiously optimistic here,” he said. “We don’t want to bring too many people into town because there are still health concerns. We have to be careful with that. All the numbers we are getting is that everything is fine, but there are still people concerned, especially down by the site.”

The village hopes to start on the park projects in the fall and complete the beautification project sometime next year.

Satuffer also requested an update on the city manager position which was left vacant last October when Mark McTrustry turned in his resignation, citing personal reasons. The village began accepting applications last November with plans to make a hiring decision at the beginning of the year but the derailment threw a wrench in those plans.

Conaway said the rail disaster not only put those plans on hold, it made finding the right candidate crucial as the village now needs continuity more than ever.

“I’ve heard a lot of complaints that we haven’t moved fast enough,” he said. “We were scared to do it right after the derailment so we put things on hold after the train wreck. We want to make sure we hire the right person. This is a prime time for the wrong person to come in and then five years down the road or two years down the road, they leave and we have to repeat the whole process.”

When asked what the council could do for the public to remedy the concerns voiced, Satuffer circled back to communication.

“Information is vital right now. People don’t know what’s going on and when people don’t know what’s going on there’s a lot of speculation,” she said “There is a lot going on and I just feel that the public needs to be informed of that or they just make things up. When people are afraid they leave, and we don’t want to lose people here. We are going to lose people anyway, but keeping people informed will help.”

Council member Dr. Jessica Rocco suggested a village newsletter. Stauffer and the rest of council agreed that would be a step in the right direction when re-opening the dialogue between the village leaders and the community. Stauffer also requested that the dialogue include public input on recovery and projects as the village attempts to get back on its feet.

In other news, council approved several pieces of legislation relating to the retaining of the PR firm, public bids for village projects and the amending of an ordinance that reduces the fees of outside vendors to set up shop in the village.

Council also heard from a handful of business owners who expressed opposition to the street fair being held on Market Street, citing that the fair poses a disruption in their business operations. Council advised any change of venue would have to be presented to and decided on by the Chamber of Commerce.

The East Palestine Fraternal Order of Eagles presented both the village fire and police departments with a $2,500 donation.