Boro cleanup day planned for spring 2015 / By Martha Knight

A proposal by Port Allegany Borough Council member Eric Button has developed into a plan to resume annual cleanup days in the borough, council members heard at their monthly meeting Monday night.

The plan calls for the borough’s waste collection contractor, SDS Casella, to provide six roll-offs, and for the borough to provide two crew members and borough manager Richard Kallenborn, on the chosen Saturday. Borough residents and businesses may bring large trash to the borough complex for $25 per load. The operation will cost a little over $4,000, it is estimated.

In recent years annual cleanups had been mentioned but nixed as unnecessary because of Casella’s zero-sort recycling program, with special bins supplied to borough customers and emptied every two weeks. Button sought more input from locals, in the past several months, and the results encouraged council to revisit the idea of a cleanup day similar to those in some other area communities.

The current plan differs from cleanups conducted in the borough, some years ago, in that those involved pick-ups of bulky items at the curb.

Another “cleanup” topic found Pat Bodamer being honored by mayor George Riley with a proclamation of September 8 as “Pat Bodamer Day,” because of his efforts in encouraging and working on the brightening of the south block of the business district.

Bodamer, working with a revitalization group, had spearheaded efforts to clean buildings and sidewalks and the windows of storefronts, repaint some fronts, and place displays in the windows, including the empty storefronts.

Bodamer was on hand to discuss plans for a glass park, to be created in the vacant space where the Grand Theater was demolished earlier this summer.

The bill list included a payment to Liberty Township of $121,600.75. This was explained as pertaining to the grant funding allocated to the borough a dual-project undertaking by the borough and the township, through their collaborative application. Grant funds will cover 75 percent and local funds 25 percent, according to announcements when the award was made.

The borough is using its funding for this year’s sewer line replacements, largely completed. The township’s project involves extending water and sewer lines two miles into a portion of the township along Route 155 south of the borough.

Kallenborn reported that Greenland Contracting has been replacing sewer lines along Harrison, Hickory, Elm and Mill streets, and property owners have been completing their laterals apace.

The sewer work has exposed some water lines in need of replacement, and new mains have been installed along Laurel Lane and Main Street as well. The new lines have been charged and sanitized, Kallenborn said.

The borough crew assisted a local factory with a water emergency, when a six-inch line ruptured last month, Kallenborn noted.

Melanie Meyer, of Howell & Company, St. Marys, presented a brief summary of the findings of the annual audit the firm performs for the borough. She said borough finances are on a sound footing.

Council member Dave Fair raised the issue of parking in the cartway or blocking traffic lanes. He said Dave Distrola, chief of police, had been helpful in looking into the matter from the standpoint of borough ordinances. Fair has looked at applicable ordinances in other boroughs. He suggested that the Streets and Sidewalks Committee look at the possibilities, and it was agreed that this would be done. Button chairs that committee, with Lynn Farber and Kate Kysor the other members.

Fair requested that borough residents who are experiencing outages and other glitches in their service from Zito Media contact him, so council can get an idea how widespread the problems are. The Coudersport-based communications company has a borough franchise, and provides television cable service within the borough, and digital phone and internet access services as well to customers who purchase those.

Fair asked locals to call him at 642-7095 or to email him at faird@zitomedia.net.