City Council - Regular Meeting

Call this Altuna City Council meeting to order. Tuesday, October 14th at 5:00 p.m. We will now have a moment of silent prayer. Please stand for the pledge of allegiance. I aliance to the flag of the United States of America and to the republic for which it stands. One nation under God, indivisible with liberty and justice for all. Linda, would you take the roll call, please? Councilman Batty is absent at this time. Councilman Butterball, here.

Councilwoman Clinich, here. Vice Mayor Ellis here. Councilman Ikis here. Councilman Kelly here. Mayor Pacificico here. Okay, at this moment we will open up the floor for public comment. If anybody would like to address council, please come to the podium, state your name and address for the record, and please keep your comments to three minutes. Floor is now open. Mhm.

Uh, good afternoon, evening, whichever you prefer. I'm Steve Alfeld. I live at 116 Spruce Avenue and I'm here to talk to you about something that is for the most part minor unless you happen to live next door to the problem. And if the city council will tune up the code to address this problem, the wonderful thing is it won't cost the city anything out of the budget. I'm talking about a problem of dogs. Uh earlier today it came to my attention that there are perhaps 1,000 dogs in the city limits that are primarily housed in buildings outside of the primary residence. While some of these dogs are family pets, but other of these dogs are housed in these outdoor facilities under uh which is defined as a kennel under uh code 184-4. The kennel definition of a kennel, I'll just read the whole thing. Any indoor housing facility wherein dogs are kept for the purpose of breeding, haunting, training, leasing, buying, boarding, sale, show, exchange, or placement as pets or similar purpose and is so constructed that dogs cannot stray there from. How many of these 10,000 dogs that are primarily housed in out exterior buildings fall in that category? because they are not primarily family pets. I'd like to call your attention to the fact that the code does not specify that these purposes under the definition of kennel are commercial or non-commercial. The code doesn't say that. It simply says breeding, hunting, show. I emphasize those purposes because the issue that brings me before you is probably about breeding, hunting, and show. If the dogs were pets, they'd be

in the family home. But because they are outside in the building, they might bark by day and howl at night, and who knows? So, the city code has zoning ordinances that say you can have a kennel in certain zoning districts, but you can't have a kennel in other zoning districts. I probably have an under the radar kennel in my neighborhood and I'm not asking you to take enforcement action on that. I don't really know. And that's the problem. That's the problem that brings me before you. We don't know if my neighborhood problem is family pets that are in the building or if my family or if these dogs are actually an under the radar kennel. We don't know. And we don't know because it's such a difficult thing to get evidence to tell are the dogs pets or are the dogs for hunting, show breeding, or these other purposes under your code's definition of a kennel. We don't know, but we could find out without any impact on the city budget if you improve the dog license rules. currently somebody who breeds a dog to sell. Well, they don't just put their name on social media because then we'd have evidence. They register with a dog breeding organization and so you go to the organization, you say, "I want a German Shepherd. I want a poodle. I want an AKC." Whatever. You don't know who the name of the breeder is. We can't know.

Mr. Alfelt, you're I think your time's almost up. Uh, I will I will wrap it up and tell you what I want you to do.

When a person under state law, a breeder must buy a license for a dog. But currently, the city is not collecting the name of the seller. The city is not collecting the name of the breeder. They are only collecting the name of the person who owns the dog. It would be nothing on the city budget if you collected the data on the person who's actually paying for the license. the person who actually owned the mother of the dog that's being sold. If you do that, we will be able to have improvement on illegal kennels 5 years, 10 years down the road. We won't solve the problem next week or tomorrow, but we will start to solve the problem off into the future. I hope you turn up the code for that. Thank you.

Thank you. Anybody else for public comment? Okay, we will close the floor and move to the resolutions. Linda,

item A is approving the minutes of the Altuna City Council meeting held Monday, September 8th, 2025. Item B is approving the submission of an application to the PA Housing Finance Agency Community Revitalization Fund Program in the amount of $1 million for a project on the redevelopment authority owned property along the 200 blocks of 6th Avenue in the city. Further authorizing the city manager to execute all documents and the city clerk to attest to same. Item C is authorizing the renewal of a hazmat agreement between the city and the county and the Blair County LEMC beginning January 2026 through December 31st, 2027 and further authorizing the city manager to execute all documents and the city clerk to attest to same. Item D is authorizing a renewed lease agreement between the city and George B. Kelly amateur baseball federation for the Tom Stout Field at Geese Park. Further authorizing the city manager to execute all documents and the city clerk to test same. Is there anything that we need to either add or delete or pull for separate vote?

Hearing none, I'll call for the vote. Councilman Batty, yes. Councilman Butterb, yes. Councilwoman Clinich, yes. Vice Mayor Ellis, yes. Councilman Kis, yes. Councilman Kelly, yes. Mayor Pacificico, yes. And the consent vote passes seven to zero. We have one ordinance on the agenda which is was introduced by Vice Mayor Ellis and it's an ordinance of the city of Altuna Blair County which adopts certain portions of the 2021 edition of the international fire code and thereby amends chapter 358 of the Altuna city code fire prevention. Is there a motion for adoption? So moved.

Second. This ordinance was moved for adoption by Vice Mayor Ellis and seconded by Mayor Pacificico. And I'll call for the vote. Councilman Batty, yes. Councilman Butterball, yes. Councilwoman Clinich, yes. Vice Mayor Ellis, yes. Councilman Kis, yes. Councilman Kelly, yes. Mayor Pacificico, yes. And the vote passes seven to zero.

City manager updates. Yes. Quickly, um, several council members asked for a project status update. The, uh, public works storm water intake modifications of 13 locations have been completed. The 25th Street, 7th Avenue signal project has been completed. Uh, Garfield Park projects been completed. The transportation center improvement project's been completed. Sidewalks on Union Avenue, 24th Street, and Broad Avenue has been completed. The 12th Street storm water improvement projects been completed. Logan Boulevard, North Third, uh storm pipe lining's been completed. Um to date, 11 miles of uh streets have been repaved and the 10th Avenue uh retaining wall has been completed. Roughly $6.8 8 million in public works projects that have been completed in 2025.

That's all. Good job. Yeah. Thank you. Thank you for the update. Thank you. Uh council discussion items. Councilman Kelly. Uh thank you, mayor. I have nothing tonight. Thank you. Thank you, Councilman Nicas. Uh thank you, Mayor. I subsequently have nothing this evening. Councilman Butterb. Nothing here. Thank you, Councilman Ellis. Nothing. Mayor, thank you. Councilman Batty,

I'd just like to say um you remember it's great today that President Trump is awarding Charlie Kirk with the Congressional Medal of Freedom. And I think that you know we all have to live a life that is worthy and have convictions that we believe in. Thank you, Councilwoman Clint. Thank you.

Thank you. I would just like to uh commend Chief Free on a job well done a couple of weeks ago at the Pennsylvania Municipal League Summit in Erie. He uh he did a um he presented a panel session on uh all the work that we're doing on homelessness here in Altuna and he did a really good job. So well done, Chief. Welcome. Uh we'll open it to questions from the media now. Bill Thank you. Um, any comment on what Steve Alfelt requested regarding the kennels?

I think that's something we'll have to look into, Bill. Yeah, I agree. And and I very much respect the way he came prepared with the ordinance and he wasn't just, you know, complaining or wanting to lay a beatd down on the neighbor or anything. saying he just came prepared and and it's something legitimate that maybe we have to look into. So, good job. Well, I I think that we had a a similar situation in a residential neighborhood not too long ago and it is something that we need to look at.

Um the I'm not sure who to ask. Um maybe Nate, what what are the odds of getting the the the housing grant for the That's a question for Eric. Oh, sorry. It's a pretty competitive grant. Um as we I guess compile outside sources, which we're working on getting outside funding in pair with this grant, um it makes the likelihood higher, but it is very competitive and they only do so many awards per year. Okay. Um, are you allowed to have any other sources besides I mean you don't have to have money actually from the general fund or anything like that to match it? No.

How do do you need to match it 50/50? No. What is the match? The match it's basically um getting as many outside different funding sources as possible to sort of aid in the grant fund. So there's no specific match requirements. It just um bolsters the application the more outside sources are obtained. Okay, that's all I have. Thanks. Meeting adjourned.