At Tuesday night's City Council meeting, members approved changes to Police Chief William Matthews' contract that allows him an additional year to complete his Act 120 certification.

A majority of councilmembers also voted in favor of renewing City Manager Harry Walker's contract for three more years.

Walker said he looked forward to playing a leadership role in Coatesville's rebirth, but he was not eager to spend another three years refereeing City Council's infighting.

“This has been an interesting trip,” Walker said about his past two years in Coatesville. “I came in here thinking I was going to save Coatesville from gross fiscal mismanagement. I didn’t think I was getting into a gunfight at the OK Corral.”

Councilman Ed Simpson cast "no" votes against amending Matthews' contract and extending Walker's term. Martin Eggleston voted against the Matthews resolution and abstained from voting on Walker's contract.

He later said, for the record, he did not support renewing the city manager's agreement with the city.

Here's the agenda for tonight's City Council meeting. Police Chief William Matthews and City Manager Harry Walker's contracts are expected to be discussed.

But remember what happened two weeks ago.

The promise of an action packed City Council meeting Monday night fell short amid a flurry of additions and deletions to the agenda (here it is in it's original form).

Among the items tabled by council were two resolutions: one that would have had council vote whether to renew City Manager Harry Walker's contract, and a second that, if passed, would have amended Police Chief William Matthews' contract allowing him another year to get his Act 120 certification.

Here's a link to the story I wrote live from Monday's meeting and another to the follow up in Wednesday's paper. They're pretty similar.

Coatesville officials have in their hands copies of Iacobucci's proposal for the Flats, and City Manager Harry Walker sounds excited:

“I think the public will believe it is better than anything else we have on the table,” he said, adding “It’s what the city has been waiting for.”

(Update: link should work now.)

City Manager Harry Walker says the city's federal weed and seed grants are available. The feds say, nope, you can't have them yet.

UPDATE: Kristin Geiger, spokeswoman for the city of Coatesville, contacted me Wednesday afternoon to confirm that City Manager Harry Walker had been contacted by e-mail regarding the city's Weed and Seed money.

"However, we are still awaitng official notice from the Department of Justice," Geiger said. She added the city has resolved the issues raised in the audit and "we are hoping to hear from the Department of Justice in the very near future.”