First Posted: 2/5/2015
CLARKS SUMMIT — Borough council voted Feb. 3 at the regular council meeting to table accepting a bid to pave borough streets this summer to try and reduce the cost.
Wayco Inc had the lowest bid for paving about a dozen borough streets at $609,662.83, which is approximately $60,000 over what council budgeted for the project in 2015. In order to reduce the cost, council member Vincent Cruciani asked council if they were willing to reduce the amount of streets to be paved this year.
Cruciani said council needed to evaluate, “If a street less paved is more important than a balanced budget.”
“I would rather table it to see if we can eliminate some streets rather than go over budget,” said council member Herman Johnson.
Council voted to table the discussion until borough manager Virginia Kehoe could find out if Wayco is willing to hold the price rate for the project, but with approximately a 10 percent reduction in volume to reduce the overall cost. If so, the finance committee will meet before the work session to evaluate cost and which streets may not get paved, and council will discuss the project at the work session Feb. 24.
Council also voted to move forward with coordinating a night the DPW crew can work overtime to clear and move the snow mounds over the curbs on State Street for safer parking.
“If we don’t (clear the snow) cars park closer and closer to the middle of the road, which makes it dangerous when trucks come through to pass,” said police chief Chris Yarns.
Kehoe said the DPW crew would have to remove the snow overnight, and therefore the project will need to be coordinated between storms since more snow expected in the coming week.
“I do believe we have monies set aside for this,” said Kehoe, adding the borough may need to rent vehicles to remove the snow.
The borough did make progress in sewer billing collections, and has had “very few,” comments or complaints regarding the increase in sewer costs, according to Kehoe.
“I feel like people knew it was coming,” said vice president Dominic Scott regarding the increase. Scott also said he was, “happy to see” 40 sewer accounts paid in full, bringing in a lump sum of $24,460 to the borough. “That’s a sizable amount.”