Town Council - Regular Meeting

like to call the meeting of town council for January 12th, 2026. Will everybody please rise for the pledge of allegiance? I pledge allegiance to the flag, the United States of America, and to the republic for which it stands, one nation under God, indivisible, with liberty and justice for all.

Thank you. And thank you all for remembering the time change to 700 p.m. Appreciate that. Uh we'd like to start the meeting with uh several announcements tonight. First one, Christmas trees will be pickup is currently taking place now through January 30th, 2026. Please be sure to remove all decorations before putting your tree at the curb. Uh the second announcement under the Pennsylvania Department of Transportation PENDOT green light go program the town of Mandless will receive more than $443,000 to upgrade adaptive signal systems on Perry Highway Route 19. A big thank you to Representative Arvin Venat and Senator L Lindseay Williams who worked together for this funding. On Wednesday, January 7th, it was announced that the Pittsburgh Post Gazette will cease printed in online publication in May of 2026. Currently, the Post Gazette is the only paper of general circulation in our area that meets the requirements of the law for the town to place our legal advertisements. The town manager has contacted our state representative, state senator, and the Pennsylvania Municipal League in order to advocate for immediate legislative action to modernize the legal advertising requirements for municipalities across the state. On Thursday, January 15th at 6:30 p.m. at McCandless Town Hall, certified vet tech Sher Hershel will teach you how to triage your pet emergencies at home, discuss pet safety, and various community resources for people and pets in difficult situations through the Pause for Empowerment program. The event is free, but please register on our website. Another big event to register for is the McCandless Polar Plunge on February 7th at 9:00 am at McCandless Town Hall. And

I do hope to see all my fellow council at that plunge. Every dollar raised will [laughter] you laugh. raise help support vital programming for individuals with intellectual and developmental disabilities, ensuring quality training, competition, leadership programs, and health initiatives for Special Olympics athletes in and around Macccanas. Again, sign up on our website. And finally, as a response to many resident requests, town council meetings will be available live on the town's YouTube channel and the uh website is there and available for you. At this time we cannot take public comment. Uh if you would like to make public comment please plan to attend in person. So are there any announce other announcements from council before we move on? Hearing none, we will move to public comments on agenda items only. Right. Um I just want to say acknowledge um this is about public engagement my comments and I want to acknowledge two public engagements. It was very nice to have the agenda on Thursday this week and it's very nice to have the live streaming.

Thank you.

So um and the public engagement is part of the 2019 comprehensive plan. So my first comment is about um under the announcements the modernize. I of course am very sad about the postgazette closing um and all those jobs and the news and it might be nice if we had a conversation um about what we're saying to our elective representatives that you know whatever can be done to save the post gazette and um the tribune review is I I'm not quite sure how that fits but there is the tribune so that's my first comment under public engagement that a conversation about um about the loss of a post gazette and then under new business there are three items and I pulled all three out. It would be nice if when these items come up if there was a discussion about them in the first meeting and then in the second meeting if that's when the vote happened. So that and I apologize I didn't look through the rest of the agenda but the Alageney County vacant property uh program it says that you know we're going to acquire it and then dispose of it and that what that might be specific to that property. um the emergency management plan. Of course, it's important to have that, but if there's a resolution in the packet, I apologize. I haven't read it, but it might be nice to have a conversation before it's voted on. And um the same with the uh flooring. Um, I see the company is in Somerset and maybe they gave the low bid, but they also probably don't have to pay the 7% county taxes which our local uh businesses might have to pay. So, that's that's

sort of the sum of what I'm saying is that instead of having these things come up and being voted on at the same meeting that they come up and then the following meeting is when the uh vote takes place. So, thank you very much. Thank you for your comment. Any other public comment on agenda items only? Okay, hearing none, we will move on to the approval of minutes. I move that we approve the meeting minutes and now council December 15, 2025. We have a motion. Do we have a second? Okay. Any comment or discussion? Any corrections to be made?

I'll know one correction. Uh, and this was pointed out by Councilman Babage. Uh, the adjournment, uh, Mr. Hart is erroneously listed twice as making the motion and the second. However, upon further review of the video, it's like the NFL, Mr. Casey made the motion and Mr. Hart made the second, so we should clarify that. So, the minutes should be approved as amended. Thank you. Can uh all in favor of approving the minutes of the December 15th, 2025 town council meeting, please respond by saying I nay. Anyone object and any abstain with one abstain? Um the

they should abstain you you and and you should I switch mine to Yeah. So um so we have in pre if you weren't in attendance for that meeting abstain. Thank you. So we have four I three abstain due to the fact that they were not present at the meeting. Okay. And now we have uh to approve the minutes of the organization meeting of January 5th.

So second we have a motion and a second. Do we have all in favor please respond by saying I. Nay hearing none. Motion passes 70. Okay. Now we'll move on to the reports of our committees. Um first from our public safety uh staff reports. Um Chief Hawk, would you like to share anything with us please?

Uh yes ma'am. Thank you. Uh few items of note as you uh folks have in front of you for the police department in the month of December. Um [clears throat] I I like to touch on a lot of training. We'd like to keep our officers trained up pretty good. For new council members, just so you know, we try to seek out as much training as we can. Um, so I touch a lot on training. Um, the first item that I wanted to mention is officer Hathaway and Sergeant New Sergeant Colic completed Vigor training. It's a firearms instructor training. It was hosted by right here by the Alageney County Police Department in December. This training certifies those officers to conduct our annual firearms qualifications for the department. So, it's good to have a couple of them. uh additional officers trained up to swap in and out whenever we have to conduct our annual firearms uh qualifications through the state. Um a couple items of note for the K9 program in December. Um when Winterfest occurred, Officer Davis and his K9 partner were here participating with everybody in the community. Uh they also had a demonstration day at the North Alagany Senior High School. Uh it included uh they participated in four law and justice classes up there. The demonstrations uh with the students consisted of narcotics detection and some Q&A from the students. Um December 3rd, myself, Lieutenant Egly, and our administrative assistants attended a AAA safety lunchon regarding uh traffic safety awards. And I'm happy to report that the town of McCandless earned a the 2025 platinum award. It's the highest award that uh AAA uh will hand out and that's um it's it's awarded to participating in communities that that shows efforts in improvement out there in numerous whether it's writing traffic citations or reduction in traffic crashes at certain um uh of of our more larger intersections. And um like I said, happy to report we got the

platinum award there. Uh, also the December 15th meeting, um, for anybody part of council was there, thank you very much. We had two officers that were promoted to sergeant, uh, Andrew Kolick and David Machznney. They were out there on the streets as new sergeant style. Our social worker, Jenny Fry, uh, in the month of December, she referred 25 people to social work services. And according to Jenny, all 25 individuals received or accepted referrals for service from her. Uh she also participated in some online workshops. Um a few of the titles that she of of training that she took, one was working with trauma related nightmares. There was also a cognitive behavioral therapy for suicide prevention and she also attended a training on deconstructing stigma mental health for the LGBTQ community. Uh Jenny also along with K9 Officer Davis and Leroy, his partner, uh had a presentation at the North Alageney School District, uh where they discussed policing and social work alongside of policing. Um says here she also met with the Humane Animal Rescue of Pittsburgh to obtain and learn more about services offered for residents there, too. And also she attended LAP training, which is the lethality assessment program. It's geared towards domestic violence victims. Um and that enables us and now her to assess how uh dangerous of a situation a victim might be in. So good training there. Uh also in December uh the police department we collected unused unwrapped toys for presence from police. Uh we sent our two new officers and social worker Jenny down to Children's Hospital to distribute the toys. We also distributed some toys to the Sunrise School and the Children's Institute as well. Um I'll wrap this up here shortly. Uh also

in December we participated in a roving DUI um task force event. It encompassed Ross McCannless Westview Pine Marshall Bradford Woods and Franklin Park. 85 vehicles were stopped. Um three individuals were administrated field sobriety tests of those two were arrested. There were also six citations and 83 warnings issued that evening. Um, I like to wrap up with uh uh deer statistics. Um, in December, the police department received 48 calls that were related to deer. Um, and Big Daddy removed 18 carcasses from the roadways. I'll take any questions if anybody has any.

Thank you. Congratulations on that award. It's always nice to get recognized by um community members outside of the police force to see the work that you're doing. I appreciate Yep. And your wolf chief, certainly we've seen more carcasses than deer. Have you run into the the coyote carcasses that have been on the sides of the road? I haven't yet, Mr. Wall. I haven't I haven't even heard of any, but I saw one up in Waxford on 19 and I saw one down on McNight Road. Good to know. I have not heard of them yet. Um, I'll check with the secretaries to make sure I didn't miss anything with them, but uh I'm sure that'll be something we'll be uh needing Big Daddy for if it if

I'm seeing more and more of that. Okay. My biggest fear is to make sure that the residents know to guard your animals at night because, you know, we've had a couple instances um and this was on social media, so I don't know how how um you know, correct it is, but we had one person report on social media that they were confronted by a coyote. Okay. So, it's been a number of years that we had an incident in Park years ago where someone actually called 911 as they felt that a group of them were converging on them, right?

But I haven't heard anything since then and that's been a number of years ago. Just thank you. Thank you. Definitely things to be aware of. Appreciate that. Um, next we have our fire marshall report for the month of December 2025. offer like to share and thanks and happy to see you back after.

Thank you. Thank you. I did want to thank everyone who had reached out to me while I was out on medical leave. Um your thoughts and prayers were definitely appreciated. I'm not sure what your prayers were, but they were they must have definitely worked because it seems like um progressing pretty good with the rehab. So, I appreciate that. Um so, I was only here for nine business days in the month of December. Uh so the numbers will kind of reflect that. But there were seven fire code inspections during the month of December. Uh three of them occupancy inspections. There were nine fire marshall calls. Um I had uh been planning the safety plan for Winterfest that was on December 6th. So I was at Winterfest kind of managing the entire safety of the day as well as the fireworks display, making sure that went off without a hitch. Um, obviously working on emergency management items and some other fire marshall items to kind of tidy up for the end of the year. Um, the fire call summary report is for the month of November. Um, again, we're always a month behind, but um, we had 112 calls in the town of McCandless, 55 of them being our medical QRS calls. Um the top three uh calls other than medical uh would be motor vehicle accidents, automatic fire alarms for commercial buildings, and then our service calls, which those are pretty much always our three top uh goat getters there. Uh there were 35 responses out of town uh for a total of 147 calls for the month of November. Uh just so everyone's aware, especially our new council members, uh I will be providing a year-end 2025 report at the next council meeting in February. I'll have all the statistics by then. Uh so if anybody has any questions, more happy to answer.

Thank you. Hearing no questions, we'll move on to the building permit report for the month of December 2025. Um Mr. Schwind notes on that. Uh nothing of interest. If you have any questions, I'm happy against these. Thank you. Um moving on to uh liaison reports. Uh first off is the personnel board. Um Mr. Georgetti, there's no meeting yet, but there will be one on the 27th, and I'm looking forward to working with the board and with the chief to keeping things moving good. So

great. Thank you. And the volunteer firefighter steering committee. There was no meeting in December, but we will be meeting in January and looking forward to um working together there. Is there any public comment on public safety? Hearing none, we'll move on to facilities management. Um if we could have um the public works activity report from Mr. Anosi, please.

Sure. Uh so leaf pickup ended uh extended to the end of the month of December. Uh we did the setup and breakdown of Winterfest. We installed some paneling here at Town Hall to where when we had the HVAC uh project, some of the areas were left with a gap and we're taking care of that. Uh the West Arcadia storm water and head wall uh project was finished. We had 11 snow call outs. The one on the one weekend lasted over 30 hours. Um so we've uh we've been pretty busy. Other than that, any questions?

I want to make a note of a personal anecdote. Uh, I was in a neighboring municipality on New Year's Eve and it was snowing. I had been coming down for hours well after midnight and as soon as we crossed into McCandless, it was night and day. The roads were clear. It was much safer. So, you guys did a really great job of keeping the roads clear, you know, very late into the night. So appreciate

and I would like to compliment you personally, Brad, because you know we've had a couple different instances where we had some people in that 30hour period that got plowed in and you took care of it. You took care of it right away. So I appreciate the attention to detail. My constituency thanks you as well. Thank you. Thank you. and we we appreciate our crew that we have here and value um the work that they do as a council. We uh we'll move on now to liaison reports uh the environmental advisory committee Mr. Hickerson. Thank you.

Um we will be having the meeting on Wednesday. Um there's a according to the printed calendar it may have been an error on there saying it was the week before. Um but we'll be meeting this week. I have met with um Jeff Petrol and he we've talked a bit and we've also he's also introduced me to some of the committee members. Um I look forward to the meeting this week. Great. Is there and I believe Mr. Geetta, you were at the last meeting. Is there anything to share from the last other than what's in the minutes? Nothing to note. You're in good hands. So,

it's a really great um very uh enthusiastic group of people there. Thank you, Tom. Uh moving on to ad hoc storm water management committee. Mr. Babage, no meeting. Any public comment on facilities management at this time? Hearing none. We'll move on to the services committee and go straight to liaison reports. The McCless Township Sanitary Authority. Mr. Arlo.

Yeah, I uh attended the uh meeting last Thursday. It was a organizational meeting. Um that was my first meeting and uh great group of folks there on that committee. We're fortunate to have them and um the minutes from the December meeting which I did not attend I believe were in fact yes they were recently approved. Thank you. Uh moving to the Macless Franklin Park Ambulance Authority Mr. George Eddie, those December minutes are in the packet. Of course, I was not there, but I'm looking forward to the meeting on the 19th on the North Board and with Chief D.

Great. Thank you. And the Northland Public Library Authority, Mr. Bevich. Uh, same situation as the EAC. We have not had a meeting yet in January. That'll be on the 27th, I believe. Council member Daddy. Yeah. I I would like to again congratulate Northland. We we attended many of us were able to attend the ribbon cutting last week. Um everything the work that's been done there is beautiful and stunning and I'm really excited. You know our library continues to be a treasure in our community and one of the most I think it is the most used library in the um Carnegie Library system. So we appreciate them.

On that note, I wanted to apologize for for my absence. I had a business. So you were missed. I was looking for you. I thought you'd be there. the room wasn't there. As a matter of fact, I I went the wrong day. I went the day earlier and I showed up and it wasn't even open yet. So, you know, it's and good coffee, too. So, we want to support commonplace coffee as well. So, um any comments on services?

Okay, hearing none. Uh moving on to old business. There is no old business. Um moving to new business. action concerning resolution 2026-01. Do we have a motion? I make a motion to approve the identified resolution 202601 for the acquisition and subsequent disposition of a vacant property known as block I'm sorry lot and block number 825-L-233 in accordance with the requirements of the Alageney County vacant property recovery program. Thank you. And do we have a second? Thank you.

There's a question. What is the address of this? The vacant the vacant lot is the parcel that ends in 233. Parcel that it's going to join to is 205 inwood road and it's on the application that was submitted. Okay. And if you're looking at the um these photos were part of the submission included by the applicant, the county. If you look at the photo that has the outlined red parcel, that's the parcel to be acquired and it's going to attach up, I'll say, to uh the L230 right above it in the photo. Thank you very much.

And can if we just want to review what this program is that the county offers residents the opportunity to purchase adjoining adjacent land to their property. um it has to go through a couple things like we have to make sure that um it is that people can't be caught up for taxes things like that. I don't know Mr. Corbo if you want to add to that. I it's a great program because it puts these lots back onto the tax roles number one which is a benefit to everybody. Um if you look at this lot especially in this neighborhood this community there's a lot of u what sometimes people call bingo lots too small to build on. So, it's just it's just essentially been an abandoned spot because nobody could do anything with it. And so, we do want to encourage neighbors if this situation occurs in their community to, you know, if they can make that part of their yard, start mowing it, taking care of it, and things like that, it's great for our community.

You're I think you're right. I think you covered it all. It's essentially um lots that are are run down or they're somehow uh they have delinquent taxes in particular. And this one, I believe, is landlocked. It doesn't have an address. that can't who's going to use it. So, um this puts it back on the rolls and and allows it to be taken care of. So, it's good. It's a good program. It used very widely throughout the county and very successfully. Any further questions on this before we vote? Okay. All in favor of uh approving resolution number 2026-01, please say I.

I. Anyone opposed? Okay, it's a unanimous approval. Make a motion to approve tenatively identified resolution 2026-02 section 7503 of the Pennsylvania Emergency Management Services Code 35PA CS section 7107 that mandates that the town of McKenna's prepare maintain keep current in emergency operations plan for the prevention and minimization of injury damage caused by major emergency or disaster within the mis municipality. Thank you. We have a motion. Do we have a second?

Second. Herson. Thank you. Uh any questions on this from council? Could could we talk about some of the change from previous plans? Even just a summary of what's different with this current iteration being this current? Yeah. this this emergency operation.

So there's really not much that has changed since um I say in the last four years. Um when I started here, I was asked to take on that responsibility as well. Um so we did update a lot of different things, but um there's really not a whole lot that's changed. some of the some of the I guess changes that are in there um and which you guys don't see and the public doesn't see is you know some of the requirements is we're supposed to have a NARM uh a resource manual uh that is not a public document but uh that has really expanded over these last four years um the uh the Whitmer Dam um action plan uh which I believe it was last year I believe it was rewritten um that is now included in this plan. Again, the document's not a public document. However, that's been updated. So, we're getting there. I mean, obviously, it's a growing document. It can be changed uh periodically, even throughout the the year if need be. Um so, but that's kind of the the gist of it.

Okay. Thank you. Yep. Any further questions? Okay. Uh hearing no further questions. Um, all in favor of approving resolution 2026-02. I I Any opposed? It is unanimous approval. And now we have action concerning town hall flooring. Would someone like to make a motion, please?

I'll make it. Motion to approve the flooring replacement quotation from flooring solutions by helped LLC and have been included in the 2025 to 2026 budget for the administrative offices and police station in the amount of $119,000. Sorry, $119,600. Thank you. A motion. Do we have a second? Second it, Mr. Hickerson. Thank you. Uh any questions from council about this motion? What is the what is the time frame on this chart?

Uh I'll just give a brief summary. This is uh money that was included uh the quotes in and kind of moving forward in December and we didn't. So we'll just have to move that money forward into this year to to cover it. This will be for all of the flooring uh downstairs in the police station to clean it up. I think it's been quite some time since a new floor has been installed anywhere in this building and everything in the administrative offices with the exception of the lobby and the powers room which are going to be part of a larger renovation project. Um timeline for this they were pretty aggressive. Uh this company he was definitely the most responsive. I'm glad he was the lowest bidder uh compared to the other bidder that we had but it wasn't by much. It was only about uh 11,000 $12,000 less. Um timeline. Brad, did he give you an estimated timeline?

He said, I think it's within two months. Yeah. Should it should be pretty quick. So, I have a question for both of you. Was there any identifiable asbestous in the flooring? Because this building was built during that time because if they've identified asbestous, we have some hurdles to get over here. The only tile that is suspicious is the tile. Well, this is suspicious, but we're not touching this yet. Uh the tile in the kitchen. Uh the contractor's solution for that is you do not remove it. You go over top encapsulate it.

As long as you encapsulate it and you don't break it into any type of a dust situation, you're okay. So, we do uh believe that's what that is. And in order to prevent having to deal with it, we're not going to remove it. We're going to go over it. From a legal standpoint, Mr. horrible. Does it make sense to encapsulate it rather than get rid of it for the long term from a legal perspective? Yes. I mean, the the liability or the issue is always there, but the encapsulation is supposed to

prevent it from being and going into the air. Correct. I mean, the the risk is always there. I could drop something. I don't know. There could be some accident that could do that. But um it the engineers would have a little more I think knowledge around how successful that is or how strong is. I don't know John if you know that. I I don't Were the engineers involved in this? No. Okay. Okay. Thank you. You're welcome. And and did the the company um have the opportunity to actually see the site or

They did. We brought both of these vendors on site so they could put the measurements down. We could talk about the materials. They sent Brad samples. This product uh in your world of good, better, best, this is better. It's not best, but it's also not good. Um we're going to use a carpet square instead of uh the rolled out carpet now so that we can replace it as needed. And then the tile, the uh vinyl tile in the back will turn into uh more like a decorative woodlooking plank essentially. So, it's going to modernize that whole area. It's going to look really nice. I think it'll eventually be in here, too. But, there's too much that needs done in here to just do the floor. You know, we have uh if you look up at the ceiling, you have panels of the 60s that probably could use a little love also. So, I think that this room needs uh a much more thorough renovation.

Any further questions from council? Hearing none. All in favor of the action concerning town hall flooring, please respond by saying I. I. I. I Okay, any naysay? Unanimous 70. Okay. And now we will finally move on to public comment on non-aggenda items. If anybody would like to speak, please make sure you have signed in and share what you'd like to share.

Hi, Barbara Richards. Um, I just want to say thank you for the early um agenda, for it being a day early. That was very helpful. And uh, it was noted by other residents also. And thank you for the live fee. It's great. Thank you. Any further public comment on non-aggenda items? Okay, hearing none. Do we have a motion to adjurnn? So moved. Second. Thank you. I hear there's a game on tonight. So with that, in favor, please respond by saying I. Any opposed? Okay. and