BOROUGH OF SLATINGTON
The Water, Sewer/Solid Waste, and Highway Committee Workshop Meetings were held on April 16, 2012 in Council Room, 125 South Walnut Street, Slatington, PA.
The meeting was called to order by President Stevens at 6:30 PM with the following in attendance:
PRESENT ABSENT OTHERS VISITORS
Bob Steets None None Kris Burek Melvin Gildner
Bryon Reed (Arrived 6:35 P.M.) Dwight Miller Carol Gildner
Galen Freed George Moyer Linda Steets
Daniel Stevens Bonnie Nichols
HIGHWAY
Galen Freed – Chairman; Members: Bryon Reed, Bob Steets
VISITORS – None
1.
Budget Truck Update – The committee has made the decision to go ahead and try to locate a suitable used newer bucket truck due to the fact that the cost to repair the boom on the truck would be in excess of
$4,500.00 and to fix the clutch would be another $1,000.00. Chairman
Freed noted that he and Bob Herzog had found a 1995 for about
$5,000.00. President Stevens asked if they had approached
Walnutport about sharing the cost, to which Chairman Freed replied no that he could not get a hold of them. They will continue to check and report back at the Council Meeting on their findings.
2.
Chairman Freed noted that in the last newsletter we had run a notice
about the “Adopt A Flag” program and John Bolton reported that
many of the flags are in pretty bad condition and suggested possibly
buying 10 new flags with the poles at a cost of $25.00 each. It was
noted that prior to 9/11 the only time we put up the flags was for July
4 th , Memorial Day, Veterans Day, but now we fly them all year long,
except at Christmas when the Christmas decorations are put up. It was
decided to put this item on the May Council Meeting Agenda for
action.
There were no further questions from the committee members, other Council members or the public and so the Highway Committee Meeting was adjourned.
SEWER/SOLID WASTE
Bob Steets – Chairman; Members: Galen Freed, Bryon Reed
VISITORS
Melvin Gildner – 528 Pine Street – He questioned who authorized the digging at 238
Chestnut Street and also inquired as to when we started using borough equipment to dig on private property. President Stevens noted that this situation was taken before the
Authority. Chairman Steets informed Mr. Gildner that he had authorized the digging and this situation dealt with the sewer lateral and the PENNVEST project and that both
Council and the Authority assumed part of the liability for the missed lateral hookup.
Vice-President Reed arrived and he explained the situation that had occurred at 238
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Chestnut Street involving the owner’s private sewer lateral and that this issue was discussed at the Authority Meeting and it was decided that the contractor Ronca was not at fault that they did what they were required to do.
Dwight Miller – 256 South Walnut Street – He reported that the catch basin close to 242
South Walnut Street is clogged up. Vice-President Reed noted that he will have the
Borough crew check the catch basin.
1. Digester Lids Update – Chairman Steets noted that at the April
Council Meeting Lehigh Engineering was appointed to oversee the
floating digester lid project.
Generator – President Stevens noted that he has not heard anything
more from SSM, but had heard from the DEP and it is now in the hands
of the EPA, who in turn made up their mind and referred it back to the
DEP. He noted that he had received a letter on March 21, 2012 and it
looks like we may have to re-bid the project, since the engineers never
changed the bid document language, but we need an exact answer from
the EPA before we can proceed ahead. Vice-President Reed stated that
SSM was not authorized to advertise, and it was noted that SSM has
not been responding. DEP and EPA are not happy with the bid
document language, nor SSM’s lack of response. We have acquired an
extension on the EPA Grant until September 2012, but we need the
generator and have already paid SSM for their costs, so if we find that
we have to re-bid we then can go after SSM to re-coup our expenses.
President Stevens noted that he is still waiting to hear from Mary
Moses at the EPA for a final answer at this point.
2. Sewer Lateral Letter Update – Vice-President Reed noted that he had
talked to John Bolton who informed him that he had submitted a list of
16 addresses to be notified by letter about their broken/clogged sewer
laterals up in the Maple Spring Acres area. The letter was approved at
the November 14, 2011 Council Meeting.
3. Pictures of blacktop chunks that had blocked the sewer line down on
East Church Street. President Stevens told John Bolton to forward
these photos to Gary Phillips who is Chairman of the Sewer Authority.
Councilor Freed asked where they came from and it was noted from
whoever paved the street after the sewer project.
Vice-President Reed stated that he checked with Solicitor Healy concerning the DMU
T/A Hannahoe Painting issue with the digester and informed them that DMU was the only bidder for that job in 2007.
Kris Burek noted that Lehigh Engineering had been appointed to oversee the digester lids project and she inquired as to how they were selected and if there was a dollar limitation.
Chairman Steets replied that they were appointed at the last Council Meeting. Chairman
Steets noted we had received a proposal. Ms. Burek inquired if we had set a dollar limitation on Lehigh’s services, and Chairman Steets stated no we didn’t and she asked then if they randomly selected Lehigh and he replied, “no, we had a number of engineers come in and give us proposals and than we voted on Lehigh Engineering to do the digester lid project, with no set amount. She then inquired when the letters on the laterals were going out. Vice-President Reed stated “shortly, he couldn’t state a definite date,
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and she questioned whether this month or next month? “ Are you giving these people a time limit to repair their laterals, and what is that time limit?” He noted that there was a time limit stated in the letter that was approved in November of 2011. She is asking for now, currently and he said the same as it was last year, and she asked what that would be and he noted that it is the same letter and it was set at 9 months. She asked who would be signing the letter, and he noted they hadn’t decided yet. President Stevens reminded her that she refused to sign it when she was head of sewer last year, and she remarked
“excuse me; I’m talking about a current situation”. She wanted to know that “do you as the Borough plan to help any of these people financially to repair/to do this work?” Vice-
President Reed noted “no, other then offering some things we found out down at the
County about some possible assistance programs.” She asked what the ramifications would be if they don’t get it done within the required time. We haven’t reviewed that issue yet. The past letter was not signed or sent out. Vice-President Reed noted that it is a continual issue from last year. President Stevens noted that “this is enough and we should move along”.
There were no further questions from the committee members, other Council members or the public and so the Sewer/Solid Waste Committee Meeting was adjourned.
WATER/SPECIAL SEWER
Bryon Reed – Chairman; Members: Bob Steets, Galen Freed
VISITORS
Bonnie Nichols – 104 North Second Street – She stated that at the last Borough Council
Meeting Solicitor Healy noted that the town does not want to be part of her disagreements with her neighbor, and President Stevens also noted that the borough cannot be involved with her and her neighbor’s property line dispute. Ms. Nichols noted that when the Trout Creek Project was done the land was re-graded and it needs to be put back into the grade it was, and then the Borough would not be involved in her property dispute with them. She reminded them that the piece of land between the houses needs to be regraded and put back the way it was before and then grass needs to be planted. Vice-
President Reed stated that he doesn’t know if it needs to be put back to that slope, that there had been a manhole there and they needed to go higher because of the manhole, and we would have to put risers on the manhole to lift it up. Ms. Nichols quoted her easement agreement noting that “you’re going to put my property back into the condition that it was before,” that means that you have to fix the slope back the way it was before, or at least put it to a condition that I’m agreeable too. She does not like that it’s flat, then steep, then flat again and she reminded Vice-President Reed that they were told their property would not be unaffected, and we have been affected. He noted that most of her side is primarily blacktopped and she replied that they own further than that and you do not have the correct property line. He noted that this is not true, we were not going to decide where the middle of Second Street was. She responded “right and he wrote his easement so you won’t have to know it, but you guys have realigned the slope according to the one with my neighbors, which I have been told was redone as per their request”.
He informed Ms. Nichols that that was not so, that the contractor graded it that way because he thought it would be the best and brought it all up, everything is kind of flat, but the manhole was the problem because it was way down and she agreed to that. He noted that the Borough needs access to the manhole and she agrees stating that it was
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never buried, just that you couldn’t see it because of the grass. She suggested that they talk to Solicitor Healy and find out if the town should be re-grading that place or not and are coming back in Spring to replant the grass, and she would like to see it re-graded before they plant grass. Vice-President Reed replied that he will check with the contractor and see where they are at and she noted that they had plants by the railroad ties and her daughter had a garden in front of a retaining wall and it was destroyed. She requested that they inform her by letter when the contractor will be coming back.
1.
Vice-President Reed noted that he is working on the electric supplier
but does not have any specifics yet, but he reminded everyone that
because we did all the research and got all the specs for 2011, all
we will need is the consumption numbers for 2011 and we can than
basically put it out for bid.
2.
He spoke to Steve Martinez and was told that he had not gotten
anything back on the filtration as far as the media goes, so when they
come back with the testing of the media maybe it isn’t as urgent as we
were led to believe and we can hold off for a year or two to list this
item under the CDBG grant.
There were no questions from the committee members, other Council members or the public and so the Water/Special Sewer Committee Meeting was adjourned.
Chairman Freed adjourned the meeting at 7:11 P.M.
Joan Cheesbrough
Assistant Borough Secretary
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