The regular monthly meeting of Yoe Borough Council was held on March 3, 2015 at the Yoe Borough Municipal Building, 150 N. Maple Street, Yoe, PA. The meeting was called to order at 7:03PM by Council President Sam Snyder followed by the Pledge of Allegiance.
Council members in attendance:
Sam Snyder
Seth Noll
Ryan Harper
Bill Bankoske
George Howett
Regan Strausbaugh (arriving at 7:07PM)
Barry Myers (arriving at 7:36PM)
Others in attendance:
Sandy Sterner, Secretary-Treasurer
Dana Shearer, Maintenance
Peter Halderman, Sitting in for Solicitor Rausch
Andy Knaub, Dallastown Cougars
Kim Sterner, Visitor
Minutes
Councilman Snyder asked if everyone had an opportunity to review the minutes of the prior meeting, any additions or corrections? A motion to accept the meeting minutes of February 3, 2015 was made by Councilman Harper. The motion was seconded by Councilman Bankoske. All in favor. Councilman Snyder said minutes accepted.
Ordinance 2015-02
Councilman Snyder said we have advertised for adoption, Ordinance 2015-02. Which was duly advertised for 7PM. This ordinance is what we were discussing about, to take care of the property maintenance issues, to clean that up. To summarize, its an ordinance amending the Yoe Borough Code of Ordinances Chapter 5, Part 3, Property Maintenance Requirements to insure more uniformity within the previously adopted sections and to change the title of certain parts of Chapter 5. Part 1. The following language shall be added to the end of Chapter 5, Part 3, Sections 5307: Yards, open lots, parking areas. As well as Chapter 5, Part 3, Section 5308: Vector control. The paragraph is identical to the paragraph that we already adopted in Section 4, as we discussed. Part 2. As I hinted with council via email communication then, shows the title for Chapter 5, Part 2 shall read Property Maintenance Requirements for Rental properties. Number 2. The title for Chapter 5 Part 3 shall read Property Maintenance Requirements for non rental properties. That will make things a lot cleaner, one section for rentals and one section for non rentals. Part 3. The remaining portions of the ordinance will remain in full force. Short and sweet, any further discussion. A motion to adopt Ordinance 2015-02 was made by Councilman Noll. The motion was seconded by Councilman Harper. All in favor. Councilman Snyder said so be it ordained. Councilman Snyder asked Mr. Halderman, historically we didn’t have the mayor’s signature on our ordinances except for our tax ordinance. Solicitor Rausch’s interpretation of the borough code, all ordinances have to presented to the mayor within ten days for approval. The reason we never had it before, if he doesn’t veto its approved. I put the signature block on. The mayor may be out for two months for medical reasons. Is this an issue that we leave it blank, its been deemed sitting here for the mayor for the ten days. Mr. Halderman said I would think so, I will check with Charlie. Discussion continued.
Visitors
Andy Knaub, Dallastown Cougar Baseball. The secretary said everyone got a copy of the letter. Mr. Knaub said Pat was to be here to help me. Councilman Snyder said we received your letter, it was presented to council prior to tonight’s meeting. I’m not sure where you fall in with the Cougar establishment and when you took your current position. There were some issues that we had last year. In particular, it was that the Cougars were to pay for the rental of the portable toilet, the bill wasn’t paid in a timely manner. There were outstanding invoices eventually through miscommunication or non payment, we were under the impression it was requested to be pulled by the Cougars. The gentleman from the Cougars said no he didn’t request that the portable be pulled, so you have infer that Knapers pulled it for non payment. The whole last month you had the field, the portable toilet had been pulled , which became an instance that was unsafe and unsanitary because you were still using the field without portable toilets. That is a concern moving forward if we allow the Cougars to use the field because this is something that was agreed upon ahead of time. I put them on notice that they in breach of the contract that they had given to council and basically gave them a cease and desist of use of the field. I have concerns going forward on how to handle this. I am not against the Cougars using the field, but I think the issue needs to be addressed to our satisfaction and your satisfaction that it won’t happen again with some sort of safeguard there. I don’t know how much you even know. Councilman Noll said before we let you use the field, you would pay the portable toilet to us upfront. Discussion continued. Mr. Knaub said last year, we didn’t have a baseball treasurer, we had a general treasurer. We now have baseball treasurer. The secretary said the main concern is the communication between the Cougars and us. There are some concerns. Councilman Snyder said my opinion and Seth felt the same way, I don’t have a problem that we arrange for the portable and you pay us up front the fees. Mr. Knaub said we could do that. Discussion continued. Councilman Snyder said take that back to them, these concerns. Come back to us and we can finalize things next month. Mr. Knaub said we won’t use the field until things are finalized. Next council meeting is April 7, 2015. The secretary asked Mr. Knaub respond back to the borough, if this is the way that Cougars want to go. Mr. Knaub asked was the field used for the whole year. Mr. Shearer said last year and the year before, it wasn’t used as heavily as previous years.
Solicitor’s Report
Mr. Halderman said you covered the ordinance.
Mr. Halderman said as far as Church Street extended. We have the two letters for properties, both are addressed and sent to banks. I doubt they will object. You can read through them, the finalized draft of the ordinance. Here is the exhibit. We want to advertise, March 17 and March 24. April 7 the meeting for adoption. A motion was made by Councilman Noll to proceed with finalizing adoption of Ordinance 2015-03. The motion was seconded by Councilman Strausbaugh. All in favor. Councilman Snyder said motion carried.
Engineer’s Report
Mr. Malesker said we talked about Dallastown joining in the boundary survey, they approved to go head with their portion of the survey, $600.00. Its on the schedule for York Township. We should have something to look at for next month. Councilman Snyder said to remind you I see its from set points and corners. If you could send notice to the property owners. Mr. Malesker said we always send notice. Councilman Snyder said put them on notice that a boundary marker can’t be removed. Mr. Malesker said we won’t give notice until everyone agrees. Councilman Snyder said just make sure you remind them that it’s a crime to remove monuments. You may want to send it to all property owners in all three municipalties and copy all municipalities involved with all notified. Councilman Noll asked when completed will we have GPS points? Mr. Malesker said yes, it will be on the borough map and we will revise the map. And when you start using the CS Datum, all the information will be on that.
Mr. Malesker said the other thing I had, The grant we talked about, the one with Exelon, I forwarded the application to Seth, Barry and Sam. Seth you talked to York Township. Councilman Noll said I talked to York Township, they said they’d write a letter of support for us, they don’t have anything left upstream as far as grants that they’ve started on. They are granted out, they don’t want to get involved with anymore. We can get that letter if we decide to move forward. Its not as simple, there is LD that we have to through York Township. Jake didn’t take that into account. We have to fill out with Army Corps, and wetland mitigation and do an LD. Councilman Snyder said one of there main concerns it didn’t show the sewer lateral.Mr. Malesker said I can provide him the CAD file. I assume that Jake would apply, it was his concept. Councilman Noll said we would have to have Jake to adjust the cost. Mr. Malesker said I talked to Barry about that, to have Jake come to this meeting. We can do the application and see what happens. Councilman Snyder said the only thing, I just couldn’t remember if I recall the conversation, it started with Tom and York Township. Councilman Noll said at the time there were two things. One was they hadn’t start the work at the top, get together a cost, that has been taken care of. The second was York Township had a developer that had a situation like ours, wetlands had to be mitigated. That went away, the developer decided to plant in York Township and get credit for the E & S plan. Councilman Snyder said there is no benefit to York Township at all. The benefit for Yoe Borough is to avoid further dredging. Mr. Shearer said there is erosion on the north side of the creek, where that tree is at the fence. When the pond is filling up before it gets real full, all that water is coming in at speed and pushing up at that side of the Riedel property, washing around the creek and washing back in at the basins. Causing erosion, we need stabilization. Discussion continued. Councilman Noll said we can report to the county to be part of the Chesapeake Bay Plan. That is still in limbo, the state is waiting, it may have to be adopted a third time. One of the 34 municipalities found out that they are an exempt municipality, now they are exempt from MS 4. It is based on 44 municipalities, and now its 43 municipalities. The state has been exceedingly slow. It was never York Township’s intention, it was Tom’s intention. Mr. Shearer said Jake was part of the project, to bring York Township. Jake was working on that with the Township and then we had this up here. He was trying to get everybody including the state on board to say, they could do different things down there if they mitigate the problems up here. The state was wishy washy on it. More red tape for the developer, it was easier for him, what he had done. Councilman Noll said and he planted all those trees down there. Discussion continued. Mr. Shearer said I just wanted to consider the work up there. I didn’t want to derail anything. Mr. Malesker said I think you could do both, the application doesn’t look like its that hard to do. Might take a few hours, four to five hundred dollars. We could tackle it together. Someone from the borough has to sign. Councilman Snyder said roundabout would be five to six hundred dollars for the both. A motion was made by Councilman Bankoske to have C. S. Davidson to proceed these two grant applications. The motion was seconded by Councilman Harper. All in favor. Mr. Malesker said it asks for your contribution. Dollars leverage or matched. Your contribution may be on going maintenance expense and engineering fees. I don’t know if you can use the grant money to pay for the permits. Paying for the permits could be your contribution. For the gabions you would want to max it at the $75,000.00 to do as many as you can. But the other you wouldn’t need that much.
Mr. Malesker said there is a storm water meeting on March 25, 2015 from 4 to 6:30PM at the West Manchester Building. Councilman Noll said they are going to be talking about a storm water authority. The county is talking about putting together a feasibility study. Trying to get public input. In Maryland, they are trying to appeal the rain tax. I went to the first session at the state, they want us to do several things. First of all, municipalities are allowed to do, to enter anyone’s property at anytime to look at their storm water facilities. They are telling you that property rights don’t exist. The next thing that everything is a pollutant. Dirt, leaves, grass, it doesn’t matter, cinders, anything that isn’t water is a pollutant. The third part, we are responsible for any drop of precipitation that drops anywhere on the borough. Private systems, public, we are responsible from the point of origin until it goes to point source discharge, waters of the Commonwealth. If we have any discharges that pass through our municipality, it use to stop at municipal borders, if it goes into neighboring municipalities, you are to have agreements with those municipalities. It is kept clean and you are responsible. They are going to force us to test all water leaving our municipality are so we know what the TDML’s are. It would be upstream out of Yoe Borough, they are increasing, they know what our loading is, they would come after us for both. Its 180 degrees from what they have been telling us, it’s a mess. They told us when you are out doing street cut, you are responsible for storm water management of the street cut. To keep the dirt from coming down the street. Also Dana, 72 hours after every run off event, snow melt anything, you are suppose to check every storm sewer, every storm cover, box to make sure they are in good working order. We are getting together from the Municipal Managers, Alex from Stock and Leader, to fight some of the things from DEP because she completely disagrees with a lot of this stuff as I do. We are going to fight from the county level, this is why we need a storm water authority. We were sitting at the meeting and the county was asking questions. We have to do a map. Why don’t you create a model map, with symbols and layout that they want us to use? DEP said we never thought about that. The state is good at telling us what they don’t like, but they haven’t given us any direction. The county couldn’t get any straight answers. We need to get in front of this. They are doing this with PENN DOT, the federal government has been going after PENN DOT. They are going to stop development. Hard to do anything. Councilman Myers mentioned about cinders after street sweeping. Councilman Noll said everything has to be manifested, you can’t use anything for fill anymore. We have to be careful how we clean out the forebays, that might have to be sent to the landfill. Unless we get written permission from PADEP. Councilman Myers said you have to get the cinders tested. One time at $160.00 a test. The first sweep has to be tested. Councilman Noll said a lot of paperwork, testing. C. S. Davidsion has the key the interactive map for labeling and marking. In the next two years the state will be out to check in a friendly audit, everyone’s MS 4. York Township is being done in March. The girl that is coming down to do that, just got her training, first time she’s ever actively audited a municipality. Mr. Malesker said I sent the list of what they are looking for. The secretary stated we don’t have a lot of those. Councilman Noll said we have started the map which is good. I am working on the policies. Councilman Myers said its still going to be expensive. Mr. Shearer said when PENN DOT tarred and chipped the state road, who is responsible for that. Councilman Noll said York Township had to clean up Reynolds Mill Rd after it was tarred and chipped by the state. There is a whole new group of people. It is all coming down from EPA. Lawsuits are a new stradegy.
Maintenance Report
Mr. Shearer said I did get the utility locate for Church Street extension. Still waiting for Columbia Gas and the sewer authority. Still working on that.
Mr. Shearer said rental fees are coming in and inspections have been started. No update on 358 S. Main Street.
Mr. Shearer said we’re just under our 140%, one more load would take us over. The state has cut us off. Morton has all the salt on the ground already allocated. I talked to Tom Metz from Kristin Phillips-Hill’s office. General Services said we can borrow from other municipalities or seek other suppliers. Tom suggested go through county EMA for a PEMA request to purchase salt from the state. Councilman Noll asked if we should increase our amount of request for 2015-2016? Mr. Shearer said I may request extra to help account for this year. Mr. Shearer said we will increase the 100 ton, to get us more tonnage. I am going to calculate the numbers. As far to get through the rest of this year, we received an order of anti skid. I will be mixing it in. I am up in the air to get more snow in or just keep what we have to use. Discussion continued.
Mr. Shearer said I talked to Joe Joines from Dallastown about street sweeping. The street sweeper is of no good use, and the municipalities aren’t sure what they want to do. Suppose to have a meeting later this week to determine if they are to keep it and fix it or sell it and go their separate ways. They are not sure at Dallastown on what they are going to do for street sweeping. If we want, if they bring a company to do it, we can piggy back with the company or get prices on our own. Give Barry and I some latitude, to find out what they are going to do and get some prices. Councilman Noll said with MS 4 they are forced to do it. Gemmill, Ross and Kinsley has street sweeping equipment.
Zoning and Code Officer Reports
Mr. Shearer said I left a message for Patti Myers. I noticed there was a lot of garbage at 30 E. Pennsylvania, construction typed stuff and the basement door is open. There is a lot of stuff on top of the snow. I made her aware.
EMA Report
There was no report.
Mayor and Police Report
There was no report.
Secretary’s Report
The secretary reported the dam maintenance 2014 payments from York Township and Dallastown.
The secretary said we received a letter from Red Lion Recreation towards the July 4th fireworks. That is budgeted and the borough will be sending $100.00.
The secretary reported all the paperwork was approved and the liquid fuels check will be paid on March 2, 2015 for $22,750.38.
The secretary reported the audit is not quite completed but all went well, advertising and other paperwork is still needed.
Unfinished Business
There ws no unfinished business.
New Business
Councilman Harper said I received an email from YATB, they nominated new members for the committee and the percentages for the revenue. Its in the folder if anyone wants to review it.
Payment of Bills
Councilman Snyder asked if everyone had an opportunity to look over the bill lists, there are no additional bills. A motion was made by Councilman Noll to pay the bills as listed. The motion was seconded by Councilman Harper. All in favor. Councilman Snyder said motion carried.
Adjournment
A motion was made by Councilman Bankoske to adjourn the meeting at 8:17PM. The motion was seconded by Councilman Snyder. All in favor.
