It happened again….

I stopped at a local coffee shop this morning. While waiting for my coffee, an older gentleman arrived and placed his order. He looked at me and recognized who I was and offered: “You’re doing a good job!”

I must be doing something right. I confess that these words help my morale a great deal.

Response to County and Township remarks…

Bradford County initiated a E-911 upgrade project in 2001. One program resulting from this is a readdressing project. Sayre authorized participation in 2002, but finally withdrew from the program in 2006. While we support the goals of the readdressing program and the overall objectives of improving the county 911 system, the process has been poorly managed and communicated.

The county attempted to impose new numbering on Sayre Borough residents on five streets we share with Athens Township. The reason was that since the township renumbered its entire jurisdiction Sayre must follow suit. Unfortunately, no one at the township thought to notify the surrounding boroughs and/or coordinate the changes.

The numbering protocol of the readdressing program establishes a starting point at the west-most or south-most end of a street and assigns a number every 10.56 feet. This system provides 1,000 addresses per statute mile. Unfortunately, Sayre’s addresses move east and west from the Sayre rail yards and north and south from Lockhart Street.

The big issue is no one obtained the Council’s authorization – section 1202(25) of the Borough Code states very simply, the boroughs control numbering this their jurisdiction. We stopped the readdressing, got the United States Postal Service Harrisburg Office to restore our original addresses.

Since that time, county and township personnel have criticized the borough and blamed us for all the problems – their working theory is we caused all the current difficulty and they are totally in the right. Criticism has appeared in the local newspapers that report on County Commissioner and Township meetings and their efforts have given people the idea that we (Sayre) is the bad guy. As Council President and chairperson of the Emergency Management Committee, I was content to let them make noise. Unfortunately, two things occurred that demanded a response.

First, the Township Board of Supervisors directed their solicitor to send a memo to the Address Management Office at Harrisburg to rescind their restoration of Sayre’s old addresses. Second, a report carried in the Morning Times on Friday, July 13th, detailing significant criticism and assignment of blame of and onto the borough.

I read a prepared statement at our Council meeting held July 23rd, under the President’s Report. The text of my comments are included below. They speak for themselves.

According to comments attributed to certain Athens  Township supervisors and county commissioners, the problems with the 911 readdressing program is the Valley are caused solely by Sayre Borough. The short-sightedness evident in these people responses is troubling.

They seem to forget that from day one we were assured that we would not have to renumber our community.

They seem to forget that they made a unilateral decision to renumber every County municipality, but failed to communicate their decision to us.

They seem to forget that the County’s policy states that communities with city-style addressing would retain that addressing unless a sufficiently good reason to change;  none has ever been provided.

They seem to forget that they began renumbering Athens Township and never once coordinated with their neighbors.

They seem to forget that the borough quickly and successfully coordinated renumbering on Third Street and on Shephard Road in Milltown; and that is was us who coordinated renaming Third Street to Robb Street, a requirement arising out of our mutual December 2002 agreement.

They seem to forget that they ignored that very same agreement and failed to rename two streets in conflict with the borough as identified in that document.

They seem to forget that Commonwealth law gives the borough the authority to control numbering within our jurisdiction.

They seem to forget that they have no authority to supersede that law.

They seem to forget that they failed to secure the Council’s approval before issuing address changes to Sayre Borough residents. Indeed, the notification memo was delivered to the borough at close of business on the day before they delivered the address change notices.

They seem to forget that their demand to the USPS Address Management Office to rescind their decision to restore Sayre Borough’s original numbering cannot be honored because the USPS respects the jurisdictional authority of the borough.

They seem to forget, in spite of their claim that West Lockhart Street originates at Elmira Street, that West Lockhart Street has had, for a very long time, an address system that started at the Sayre rail yards and increased westward until it reached Elmira Street.

They seem to forget that we exist as they have meeting after meeting among themselves to complain about the borough and always seem to fail to invite a borough representative.

And they seem oblivious that they created this problem.

July 23, 2007, Council Meeting

We have a busy agenda at this meeting. The first thing I did was impose a three minute time limit on public comment. It worked very well at the Refuse hearing and it worked well at this meeting. Several people spoke on the following issues: a thank-you for having the public hearing; a question on how the new yard-waste drop-off facility and security cameras were being funded (savings realized when an employee left Public Works); complaint and concern about road construction; and concern that borough ordinances were not being enforced.

A highlight at this meeting was the announcement that a local teen-ager, one Darren Reilly, won a $1,000 scholarship from the President Edward Fund that is sponsored by the Pennsylvania State Association of Boroughs . This is the first time in at least the 10 years I’ve been on Council that someone won a scholarship. Congratulations to Mr. Reilly!

We had a very busy night. The evening began with another public hearing, this one was required and concerned renewing the borough’s franchise agreement with Time-Warner Cable. Four councilors, our solicitor, Ms. Daly/Borough Secretary and one newspaper reporter were present – yep, no citizens. Mr. Whalen (sp) represented Time-Warner and answered our questions. There technical improvements coming later this year affecting how television channels are delivered to each residence. At the moment, they send all channels to all homes. Under the new scheme, they will send just the requested channel – a kind of on-demand system. Also, of interest to us, they are working on building some redundancy into the service provided to the borough and the Valley. A lightning strike a couple of weeks ago destroyed their equipment on Round Top and wiped out cable, internet phone, and Road Runner for almost 14 hours. The equipment site was a single point of failure and they recognize the problem and have a solution under development. We’ll see…

• We approved, 7-0, the franchise agreement, pending correction that substitutes the “Borough of Sayre” for “Athens Township” and legal review.

• Approved, 7-0, the Payment in lieu of taxes (PILOT) agreement with Guthrie Heathcare System . The GHS is tax-exempt (for most of its operations) but they provide services in kind, e.g., they maintain Howard Elmer Park (which is pretty much their “front yard” and they do it very well; they will provide the borough with $10,000 annually beginning this year through 2009 towards purchase of a police car; and they will begin maintenance of the Island Pond park area, which compliments their management of the Packer Pond.

• Rejected, 7-0, the refuse collection bid proposals from bid proposals from B&E Disposal of Nichols and the Northern Tier Solid Waste Authority. This effectively ends the drive to privatize our garbage collection program.

• Authorized, 7-0 for each vehicle, advertising the sale of the 1995 Chevy Caprice sedan and the 2004 Ford sedan. Both are police cars going out of service.

• Authorized, 7-0, pay request 9 from Chicago Construction for $379,579.00. CC is the contractor working on Phase I of our sewer infrastructure project.

• We also authorized, 7-0, Change Order 8 from CC for $10,492.59. Part of this money will purchase manholes and pipe from CC for use on the West Street sewer project.

• Accepted a bid, 7-0, for this work on West Street from G. DeVincentis & Son Construction out of Binghamton, NY. They provided the low bid of $178,000. Vacri Construction, also of Binghamton, submitted a bid for $232,000.

• Authorized, 7-0, the purchase of concrete barriers for the yard waste drop-off facility, with the purchase not to exceed $8,000.

• Authorized, 7-0, the purchase of a video surveillance system from Teledair Communications for $3,900. Price includes equipment, installation, and set up of an internet link.

• Authorized, 5-0 with one abstention, the removal of a tree on private property at 106 Layton Street with costs to be shared equally between the borough and the home owner. Layton Street was part of our sewer infrastructure project and the home owner is very concern the digging disrupted the roots and harmed the tree. A commonwealth forestry expert was consulted and her recommendation was to remove the tree.

• After long discussion, the council authorized, 5-2, the purchase of a 2007 Dodge Charger for the Police Department that will replace the 2004 Ford sedan previously mentioned. It will be funded by the first $10,000 check from GHS, with the remainder coming from our loan “set-aside” account that will be paid back to the borough over a two year period.

• Approved, 7-0, the assignment of the first metered space on the north side of West Lockhart Street at Desmond Street as a bus stop for Endless Mountains Transportation Authority (EMTA). This bus stop will service the Lockhart Building residents.

• Adopted, 7-0, the recommended changes to our Community Development Block Grant (CDBG) housing rehabilitation program policy. The changes increased the grant from $10,000 to $20,000; and updated contractor insurance requirements language to make insurance requirements the same as required for a construction permit in the Borough.

• Approved, 7-0, a request from the Roma Madre Lodge 1342, Sons of Italy, to close Hayden Street between Desmond and N. Lehigh Avenue and to allow parking on the east side of N. Lehigh.

• Approved a resolution, 7-0, adopting the Bradford County Multihazard Mitigation Plan as the borough’s plan.

A very busy meeting with much accomplished!

An unexpected compliment….

A couple of weeks ago, I was working in my yard when a woman passed by and stopped. She recognized me as the guy who walks two dogs through the neighborhood each morning. She looked at me a few seconds and asked if I was the Daly who was on the Council. I said I was and she replied that “You’re doing a good job!”

I confess that I was very surprised. I don’t hear those words very often and told her so, and I thanked her. Really made my day…

Public Hearing, July 19th, 2007: Do we privatize our refuse collection?

The Council held a public hearing on July 19th, 2007, to receive public comment on a proposal to privatize our refuse collection. This idea was Councilman John Stetz’s idea – he has long been an advocate of getting out of the garbage business – and Council finally agreed to look at it. We appointed a special committee comprised of citizens-at-large with Councilman Stetz as our liaison to them. They returned a recommendation to go to a private contractor, an unsurprising conclusion given that some of them held that idea from the beginning.\

Nearly 50 people attended, which is a very good turn out for this community. About half of them spoke and all but one wanted the borough to continue collecting the garbage. One surprising item to come from their comments is a strong interest in recycling.

The minutes of the hearing are still in production as I type this, and will be approved at the August council meeting. When they are available, I will post the draft on the borough’s web site.