This Meeting was recorded for Accuracy
Meeting opened by Lewis McLaughlin -President
Present: Jeffery Miller, Clark Baird-Mayor, Sue Bartow, Keith StClair, Lou McLaughlin, & Brian Litzinger- Solicitor
Absent: Gladine McMaster
General Public Mellissa Miller
Approval Sept minutes
After review motion made by Jeffery 2nd by Keith to approve minutes. No objections. Motion passed.
Approval of Treasurer Report
After review motion made by Jeffery 2nd by Sue to approve treasurer report. No objections motion passed.
Solicitor Report:
Brian gave copy of criminal complaint which was filed with court concerning property on Lear Street. The only other issue was getting into contact with former Solicitor on the per capita issue. We have connected and has sent me some of the items. He is familiar with some of the names on the list is the same ones on the sewage authority list.
Public Comment:
No one in attendance at the present time
Special Guest- Keith Vasas, Engineer
Lou said Keith tried to call him but did not get a response back. He supposes that he wanted to talk about the grant he was working on.
Pat said Keith notified her of a new income survey the county changed and was just sent out yesterday. Keith said he did file the 2026 on time and said the county will take the income surveys later when he gets the new ones back.
Pat said we also can tackle the 2025 CDBG grant that we applied for. Pat read the letter from the county saying the Borough was approved for the 2025 grant but only on phase 3 at this time in the amount of $278,800.00. Our project has been submitted to HUD, however HUD grant funding will not be available for several month. We ae not authorized to award to a construction contract or authorize a material purchase prior to notification from the county office. We can begin preliminary work such as the engineering design required to initiate the bidding process. This bidding may not be advertised until a sub recipient agreement has been approved and executed with the county.
Sue motions to accept grant contract, 2nd by Jeffery, all in favor motion passed for Lou to sign the agreement. Pat said she did email Keith a copy of the letter so he is aware of this.
Special Guest- Katrina Perkosky – Community Foundation of the Alleghany’s
Mellissa said she is not coming now but has sent over all the information about the Community Foundation and how it works with agencies that ae not 501 C-3 status.
Mellissa would like to know if council will agree with the program. Brian does not have a problem with parks going thru the agency. Sue wants to know who pays for the administrative fee they are to collect. Mellissa says it all come out of the parks funds and not the Boroughs.
Lou said we need a motion to accept or deny the proposal. Sue motions to approve the agreement and Keith 2nd, all in favor motion passed.
Old Business:
Update on Tax Collector Committee Rep.
Keith said this was discussed earlier and School Board approved Eric Kocsis as well as we sent a letter to the school board requesting him. The School board approved the request.
Update on Sec/Treasurer position
Lou said Gladine, Lou and Pat interviewed the applicant and she seems very well qualified and has agreed to the position. Lou called an executive meeting to discuss with rest of council. Executive meeting called at 7:12 PM.
Executive meeting ending at 7:15 PM. Decision was to hire Georgianna Wheeler as Sec/ Treasurer at a salary of $500 every two weeks. Start date will be as soon as she is bonded. She can start training now.
Pat asked if council wants me to also order a bank card for Georgianna to make purchases for supplies as needed. She will not be able to use mine since it has my name on it along with the Borough’s. Council agreed to also get her a bank card ordered.
New Business
Set up Budget Meeting for 2026 Budget.
Pat said she spoke with the county tax office and was told they are still working on real estate appeals and the figure for 2026 will not be available until end of November. They said to use 2025 figures to do the budget.
Discussion was made and decided to have a work session on Wednesday Oct 8th at 6 PM.
CD rates – current CD maturing Oct 9th.
Pat contacted Somerset Trust
7- month rate 3.9 % Minimum $500 no penalty
11 mo. – 3.95 % Minimum $500 no penalty
13 mo. 3.95% Minimum $500 no penalty
Specials
7 mo. 3.72 % Minimum $5,000
15 mo. 3.32 % Minimum $5,000
27 mo. 3.03% Minimum $5,000
IN First Bank CD rates
12 mo. 3.25 %
6 mo. 2.5%
3 mo. 3.85%
24 mo. 2.5%
S & T Bank CD rates
3 mo. 3.50% minimum $1,000
6 mo. 3.75% minimum $1,000
9 mo. 3.65% minimum $1,000
12 mo. 3.50% minimum $500
18 mo. 3.50% minimum $500
Jeffery suggested to see if we could get 3.75 % for 18 months since the Bank said they could request a higher rate for approval to keep cd’s at that branch.
Sue motions to get 18 mo. CD, Jeffery 2nd, motion all in favor motion passed. Pat to check and see what we can get.
Our current cd is 4.50% and we will be receiving $554.74 on Oct 9th.
Autumn leaves curbside pickup
The Borough will be collecting bagged leaves from residents Oct and Nov as long as the residents have them placed in a bag and placed on the curbside on Tuesdays and Thursdays thru Nov. They are not to take down themselves to the lower park for disposing.
No other new business.
Correspondence
- PA Game Commission Tree Seedlings for 2026- no action taken
- Westmoreland County Land Bank – No action taken.
- Fire Dept. street closure for Halloween parade.
Fire Dept. requesting permission to temporarily close Lincoln Street between Fourth and Fifth Streets on Sunday Oct 26 from 1 PM to 2 PM to line up for the Halloween parade. Then would like permission to have a moving road closure from the parade to go down Lincoln to Sixth Street, down Sixth Street to Market St, down Market Street to Third Street to the fire station.
Jeffery motions to approve road closure, 2nd by Keith and Sue, all in favor motion approved.
Mayor Report
Clark received a complaint about goats in town. He received a call and he checked out the property. The goat pen is in Fairfield TWP.
Art said he also has property in Fairfield TWP but pays his taxes in the Borough. He doesn’t care. They also have turkeys. The pen really needs to be move about 3 feet to put entirely into Fairfield TWP. It is not worth the hassle to have them do this. And the cost to get a survey done.
That is all he has at the present time.
Sewage Report
No meeting in October.
Street Commissioner Report
Truck has 4300 miles on it. Zero turn has 1445 hours and Kubota has 113.5 hours on it. They did change the tire around that was rubbing. The tie was put on backwards with the valve stem inside instead of outside of the wheel. We still have another recall left on the truck. Pat said it is a program issue from Ford. Lou said the wheels were getting a little rusted up and he talked to the workers to get special paint to touch them up.
Parks & Rec
We moved the bon fire from the bottom to the top park. We are to use the concrete slab at the park by the pavilion. We will get the wood. The playground has been put in at the lower playground. Someone has carved their name into the new picnic table at the park and someone also left an old dehumidifier in the trash bin at the park.
The other thing is we are looking into is because we sell some many things as fund raisers would you have a problem with us getting one for the park. We are using our own venom accounts for people to pay for items. We can have a venom for parks and rec. Would the Borough have a problem with us doing this? Pat is to check with the bank to see how this is to be done.
Keith wanted to know if you could withdraw from a venom account. Keith said can you have it for deposit only.
Sue said maybe we should wait and check with Georgianna first to see if she would be willing to do this.
Brian said it is better to have just one account rather than several accounts trying to keep track of the funds.
We just have the gun bash coming up. That’s all I have.
Jeffery motion to close the meeting, 2nd by Lou all in favor motion passed. Meeting ended 8:40 PM.
No other business
Respectfully,
Patricia Betts
Secretary/Treasurer