Atglen Borough Council Notes

Borough Mamager Gail Murphy, Council President Dirk Hagan and Councilperson Nancy Pelet talk before the start of Monday's council meeting.

Notes: these are unofficial notes from Monday evening’s Atglen Borough Council Meeting

Public Works Report

• Participation low; 2.5 inches of rain in July
• 66,500 gallons per day entering the sewer plant 
• Sewer plant:  L&I work – we’ll do some final work on the traps left over from last year.  We still have a few sewer vents we can’t find.  We’ll look at that later
• We had a community service worker doing 40 hours of community service – painted borough Hall – did a nice job
• 124 Newport Circle – we replaced a piece of concrete in the sidewalk, a trip hazard.  Looks pretty good
• Are there other streets that need repairs in the Borough?  A few (5-6) but nothing major.  Each location is checked and repaired once a quarter
• Water
• Well  #1 – we’re waiting on DEP for the go ahead to do the pump switch out on pumps 1 and 3.
• New well site at the Beiler-Campbell prop – there was a meeting today.  Contractor will put in some testing equip.  Beginning this Friday we’ll be monitoring 6 different locations. One at the farmhouse and at 5 other locations along the creek.  Contractor will install a pump next week.  We’ll then do our drawdown test.  These monitor points gather and store information.  We’ll gather the paper slips from each of the points once an hour to make sure we don’t lose the data.  The first 12 hours of the test are most important. We’ll team up with the contractor to do the testing across all 48 hours of the well test.

There we no visitor comments

Minutes, Bills, Treasurers Report, Department and Advisory reports were reviewed and approved – Lavenberg asked for an adjustment to the minutes, that those marked present be noted as absent.  The change will be made.

Household hazardous waste – the topic was tabled last month.  President Hagan made a suggestion that the Borough pay the $400.  Instead, a motion was made that the borough wait until the start of 2012 and join then.  The motion was approved.

C tabled, we’re not talking about that. 

Sewer project grant – Borough Manager Gail Murphy is looking for monies from the county but doesn’t expect to hear anything until September.

Timber sale – the contractor will mulch everything. 

Cable TV franchise –

Covered Bridge Run – Chief Sheller met with Y officials about the race.  The Y will try to meet the Chief’s specifications.

Penningtonville Park – storm water catch basin is scheduled for tax sale at the end of the year.  Perhaps we’ll be able to pick it up very cheaply.

201 Main Street –

Rental Inspection program – continuing to work on it, nothing to report

Zoning Amendment – Chester County asked for a couple of changes pertaining to cell phone towers and satellite dishes.  Nothing wrong with what we’re doing.  We’ll send this version to our solicitor for his review. Hope to have it ready to be reviewed and ready for a vote at our September meeting.

Bridge Right of Ways – Hope to get them both signed this week

Good Works – a breakfast in August or September?  We haven’t had a business open house in a long time.  Combine an in a single event and invite churches and businesses to meet with Good Works

Chetty Property – Meeting with Chetty next week.

September Borough Council Meeting – thinking of having the meeting August 29^th instead of on September 5th Labor Day.  We need to have a meeting to work on the preliminary budget.  President Hagan can not attend on September 12^th.  Other members can not attend on August 29^th.  Also considered 8/31 and 9/7 as possible other dates.  Agreed on August 29^th at 7:00 PM. 

Visitor Comments –

William Kloss asked for more information on the Chetty Property – Chetty had almost completed the sub division before the economy tanked.  There are a couple of very dilapidated houses that may need to be demolished.  Zoning officer is meeting with Chetty to develop an action plan. 

Kloss expressed concern about expansion of the sewer plant, there hasn’t been a discloser about our rate increase and the town footing the bill for the development in the open field in the Chetty Property. 

Council responded by explaining the sewer plant can not meet the Chesapeake Bay regulations.  We could put a patch on the plant which would cost $1M.  That patch would only get us through a couple of years and then we would have to spend more money.  We don’t see the regulations getting easier/lighter.  The patch just didn’t make sense. 

We looked at options including connecting to PA American water, we would have to run new piping from east of Parkesburg ($4.5M).  We also looked at partnering with Christiana, they were not interested. 

Our existing plant was built in 1969, it is working to its capacity.  The new plant will support up to 300 additional homes and is expandable as that number is exceeded. 

Federal government is reimbursing the borough 48% of the interest.  Sewer fees in the borough will go up to pay for the new plant.  They will go up on an annual basis for the next 25 years.  Tap in fees are currently $12,000, the highest in the county.  We’ve been looking at options for a many years.  We’re a small municipality so our pleas aren’t heard in Harrisburg or Washington.

Senator Brubaker has been very helpful on the political side.  Council also considered hiring lobbyist and consultants but that route would have cost $60K and had no guarantee of success.

Plan to bid the sewer project by the end of this year or early next year and, based on recent experience, hope the bids come in below estimates.

Our water is the next issue we'll have to deal with.  Were being told we need to shut down our springs the current source of our drinking water. The springs don’t meet regulation.  Eventually we’ll have to shut them down, drill another well.  That costs money.  DEP wants to do away with springs.  We thought with the new well we were ahead of the game.  Even with this new well we may need another well.  The springs have produced since 1923.  We can buy water from PA water but it costs more than getting it from our own Springs.

Mayors report – no report

Other council comments

·        Police are out more since we’ve changed the hours.  We’ve had a couple of auto breakins.  Keep your eyes open.  If you see someone in the area you don’t know call the police.

Meeting adjourned at 7:55

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