The post-election reorganization of Bellevue Council Monday night was not without incident -- several of them in fact. The meeting began with one council member-elect omitted from the swearing-in, and ended with questions about the legitimacy of the entire process. In between, a new regime took charge of council, and perhaps set the tone for the coming year.

While Bellevue's director of administrative services thinks the Artober Fest benefit raised about $6,500 to benefit a proposed skate plaza in Bayne Park, officials have some serious questions about the unauthorized expenditure of almost that much to put on the event.

DAS Doug Sample told council members last week that the event grossed about $12,500, apparently including a $5,000 matching grant from Allegheny General Hospital. Sample said about $6,000 was spent on the event.

The Sept. 27 regular meeting of Bellevue Council had to be canceled due to the lack of a quorum.

Only three members of council -- Linda Woshner, Jane Braunlich and Susan Viscusi -- appeared for the 7 p.m. meeting.

The six members of council who were absent were Lisa Blaney-Stewart, David Gillingham Jr., Mark Helbling, Kathy Coder, Mark Panichella and Jim Viscusi.

Woshner said that the business scheduled for Tuesday’s meeting likely would be placed on the agenda for the council work session to be held the second Tuesday in October.

Bellevue Council voted Tuesday to put the borough in the position to refinance its outstanding bonds if market conditions make the move sufficiently profitable for the borough.

Representatives of the broker, as well as bond counsel, told officials that the ordinance will authorize them to act if the borough can achieve a savings of at least 2 percent of the $6 million principal, or of at least $100,000 if only part of the bond is refinanced.

Democrats decided primary contests in two of the borough’s wards, choosing three candidates to advance to the November general election.

In the first ward, incumbent Linda Woshner handed Susan Schafer her second election loss in as many years, picking up 174 votes to Schafer’s 136 to secure the Democratic nomination for the first ward seat on Bellevue Council.

Woshner will face Republican Anna Daughenbaugh in November. Daughenbaugh was unopposed in the primary.

Bellevue officials are being asked to save money and paper by switching to netbooks for delivery of borough documents, but the move is making some officials a bit nervous.

The idea is to save the borough about $2,500 each year in paper, copier and staff costs by making documents available for download from a secure borough “sharepoint.”

Bellevue property owners may pay a bit more this year in sewer surcharges, but it won't be as much as it could have been. With two members absent, a hotly divided Bellevue Council voted Tuesday to set a usage based surcharge at $2.25 per 1,000 gallons of water used at a property.

An ordinance adopted in December had set the fee at $3 per 1,000 gallons of water used, but that ordinance was vetoed by Mayor George Doscher shortly after it was approved. Doscher argued that it would be more "compassionate" to increase the fee in stages over a two-year period.

Bellevue Council is expected to vote Feb. 22 on whether to double the price of parking at a meter in the borough.

The increase, from 25 cents per hour to 50 cents per hour, is proposed as part of a “revenue generation action plan” presented to council by Police Chief matt Sentner.

The plan also calls for increased fines for meter and street sweeping violations.

Although Bellevue's 2011 budget remains intact, Mayor George Doscher has vetoed three supporting ordinances that have a tremendous impact on the coming year's spending plan.

Doscher notified Bellevue Council on Dec. 30 that he was vetoing the sewer surcharge ordinance, as well as the salary ordinance and the ordinance amending the borough's personnel code to add several new positions.

Despite an early start to this year’s budget process and every intention of actually getting a bud-get adopted before the end of the year, Bellevue officials hit a snag when it came time to vote on the first reading of the budget ordinance at Tuesday’s regular meeting.

Lingering concerns over a hefty increase in the sewer surcharge and salary increases were complicated by a change in adoption procedure introduced by the borough’s solicitor to send officials back to the drawing board before a substantive vote on the bud-get is taken, probably on Dec. 14.

Bellevue will solicit proposals from swimming pool management companies as well as applications from individual pool managers.

Council member Linda Woshner said that the borough’s cost to operate the swimming pool at Memorial Park increased by nearly $60,000 during the past year, when the borough retained SwimAmerica to manage the facility. In past years, the borough has hired its own manager and lifeguards.

Disagreements over procedure broke the tenuous calm that has marked recent Bellevue Council meetings, ending with council members walking out of Tuesday’s work session as others were chastised for their behavior.

A number of motions -- including a couple to adopt ordinances on their second readings -- were approved in 5-4 votes as issue of voting at work sessions once again became the subject of debate.