WARREN — City Council will continue talks on legislation to update rules for contractors who work on public projects.

The legislation will come up again at a 1 p.m. council meeting Dec. 29.

“It is our belief that before the end of the year, we will have presented this and passed it,” Councilman Todd Johnson, I-1st Ward, said at Wednesday’s council meeting.

If passed, they would take effect right away to boost safety and welfare in Warren.

The changes come in two pieces of legislation drafted by Johnson.

One would raise the bond amount that contractors must have from $10,000 to $25,000.

The other would tweak the wording to clearly include all types of contractors, especially those doing demolitions, and add a $50 fee for turning in incomplete paperwork.

Johnson said the first measure raises bonds for licensed contractors doing city work from $10,000 to $25,000 as “a reflection of inflation, the increased cost of building, the phenomenally large amounts of these contracts and building projects. It just meets the present day realities.”

The second updates definitions “to make sure that we properly include especially contractors,” holding them to the same standards as others while clarifying language, Johnson said.

He noted recent work showed gaps in the rules.

“It’s more of a streamlining and updating language. It’s like the jargon of how we categorize things,” he said.

As the city gets into more commercial demolitions Johnson said, “…we discovered that we need to make sure we have language to protect the city and the taxpayers by making sure everyone is bonded and that definitions are accurate in our legislation.”

Johnson said the measures protect the city, the citizens and the taxpayers along with making sure bidders fit the standards.

“We want to make sure that only qualified individuals are bidding on our projects,” Johnson said. “Once we pay this money out, nobody wants to pay more because of shoddy work, and that sort of is a filtering instrument for us, because you have to meet certain minimum levels to even be able to bid on a municipal project.”

The rules would cover general, mechanical and street contractors, but not homeowners doing their own fixes or government jobs.

The bond would last during registration and renew each year. It would shield the city from poor work, rule breaks or harm caused by negligence.

Johnson said the legislation would apply to projects like the demolition of the historic Reeves Building at 295 W. Market St. That work started in June by ProQuality Demolition of Youngstown, which won a $522,000 bid in May.

“That’s a perfect example that we did several years ago, knowing that this is just the beginning of transformation in our city, and we’ll more likely have to do more projects, like the Peninsula Project that’s forthcoming and things in the Golden Triangle, whatever we have to do, especially large-scale commercial demolition,” Johnson said.