Town Council - Regular Meeting

30 minutes.

Good evening. I'd like to call to order the meeting of McCandless Town Council for July 13, 2026. Will everyone please rise for the Pledge of Allegiance.

I pledge allegiance 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.

Thank you. We'd like to start this evening's meeting with a few announcements. Number one, we'd like to let you know that the Town is seeking applicants for a vacancy on the Planning Commission. Please see our website for more information and the deadline for applying for this position is July 20th, 2026. So we also want to know if you have any photos of canvas icons, people, places, events, bring them to the Heritage and Cultural Center on Saturday, July 25th from 1 to 4 p.m. for a scanning party. HCC volunteers will scan your images, record information, add them to our historic Pittsburgh database, and return the hard copies to you. Please plan to join us on Tuesday, August 1st from 5 to 8 p.m. for National Night Out. This will be in the parking lot located behind Town Hall. And we will have a DJ, food trucks, vendors, free giveaways, and family fun. It's a great event if you would like to do the touch the truck. We have lots of great equipment here. And now we would like to welcome Judge Bungo. We will be squaring in. We're very excited to welcome two new officers to the town of McCandless Police Department. We'd like to begin with Officer Jonathan Painter, please. We need a motion first. Okay. Can we have a motion, please, to appoint Mr. Painter? I so move. Thank you, Mr. Warren. And a second. Second. Thank you. That's all. We move a motion and a second. All in favor of appointing Jonathan Painter as the town of McHenry's police officer, please respond by saying aye. Aye. Okay. Motion carries.

All right. Please raise your right hand. I, Jonathan Painter, I, Jonathan Painter, do solemnly swear that I will support, obey, and defend the Constitution of the United States, the Constitution of the United States, and Constitution of this commonwealth, and Constitution of this commonwealth, and that I will discharge the duties that I will discharge the duties of police officer, of police officer with fidelity. Thank you.

Jonathan shield, where we are in pride. Well,

Okay, that's it. We have a motion from the council to appoint Jacob Alpha as the town of McCann as police officer, please. I'm sorry. No, I was going to make it. Okay. Mr. Well, Mr. George, a second, please. Second. Thank you, Mr. George. Okay, all in favor of appointing Mr. Jacob Alford as a town of McCandless police officer, please respond by saying aye. Motion carries. Thank you, Judge. Thank you.

All right, Mr. Alford, please raise your hand.

Repeat after me. I, Jacob Alford. I, Dave Fowler. Do solemnly swear. Do solemnly swear. That I will support, obey, and defend. That I will support, obey, and defend. The Constitution of the United States. The Constitution of the United States. The Constitution of this Commonwealth. The Constitution of this Commonwealth. And I will discharge the duties of police officer. And I will discharge the duties of police officer. With fidelity. With fidelity. Amen.

Thank you.

Officers Painter and Alper, I'd like to personally welcome you to the town of McCandless and we're excited that you'll do a flight as our community. Thank you. Any other announcements from council at this time? Okay, and then we will now move on to public comment on agenda items only. If anybody would like to begin, please approach the podium and share your name and address. Okay, if we have public comment, we will now move on to the approval of minutes. May I have a motion?

I make a motion to approve the meetings of town council minutes from June 22nd, 2026.

Do we have a second, please? Second. Thank you, Ms. Hall. Okay. Any corrections, comments from council on minutes provided? Okay, seeing none. All in favor of approving the minutes of Council, June 22nd, 2026, please respond by saying aye. Aye. I'll abstain. Okay, motion carries. Moving on now to reports of committees. Public Safety Chiefs here. Okay, we'll start with Chiefs of Public Safety.

Yeah, thank you. So, as you folks can see, if you have any questions, please ask me.

Regarding training, as you can see, there's a training there. I want to try to touch on all of them. I wanted to call attention to an incident in the end of June. Sing the praises of our canine team. There was one of those very hot days near the end of the month where we had an elderly female wander from a care facility. been gone for an unknown amount of time and with the help of officer davis and in particular his partner leeway we were able to find her in the rooted area in not such good condition um unfortunately uh things turned out well we were able to get her some medical attention and uh they uh not that i ever doubted that program but that was uh um proof right there that this program and that this canine are value to the police force, you know, beyond words.

Right.

Also in the month of June, Jenny, our social worker, had 24 individuals that she referred to services, support, or other information, so she continues to have business come her way. And... As the President of Council said, National Night Out is August 4th, I believe, from 5 to 8, Tuesday evening, down in the town hall, down in the Police Department parking lot. I'll wrap up here. Like I said, most of this is training related. We had 42 calls relating to deer. I attribute that higher number to probably the fawns. It's the season for babies. And we had 42 calls relating to deer and Big Daddy picked up 13 carcasses from the roadways.

Thank you.

Do we have any questions for Chief from Council? Just a comment. You guys did an outstanding job with the road closure on Cumberland. Okay. That's right. You know, both you guys and DPW worked together to secure the site. And I will tell you, after being there, I don't know how anybody didn't get hurt. But kudos to you guys and kudos to DPW.

Thank you, sir. Yeah, that was a challenge on Sunday evening and continues to be for us. And the manager had boots on the ground with me Sunday evening. And, yeah, you're right, Mr. Raw could have been your adjutant.

Mr. Schwinn too. I mean, we had our hands on deck and your comments and Mr. Schwinn's comments in the media were spot on. You know, you gave them the information that they needed to do. So I just wanted to compliment you both. Thank you, sir.

Okay, we have no further questions. We can move on now to our fire marshal's report.

Thank you. Good evening, Council. The final report from the month of June, there were nine fire code inspections, 21 fire motion calls, one safety training program where I spent some time up in the North Allegheny School District teaching their staff employee safety in the workplace. There was one structure fire we had where I investigated a fire. It was rolled accidental, electrical in nature. To give you guys kind of a running tab again for the Storz adapters project, over 440 adapters have been installed so far out of the 591 public hydrants. So that's a little over three quarters of our public hydrants now have the Storz adapters. uh letters to the reserve of private hydrants went out last week um they have until june 22nd of next year to comply so we'll be kind of following that uh to make sure that that gets taken care of um as you well know you probably saw uh articles what we mean with journal the joint fire company bylaws we've completed that project and they were voted on by all three volunteer fire companies and accepted uh to give everybody just kind of a a little synopsis of kind of how this happened if you're not aware um Last fall, we were working with Rob Consulting to put together a draft of bylaws, which when they submitted that draft to us, we had formed a committee. It involved two representatives from each of our three volunteer fire companies, Mr. Swinn, myself, and Ms. Kennedy, our secretary, and We were pretty much probably meeting about every other week until we accomplished this. There were five drafts before we finally had a working draft. It went back to the volunteer fire companies and at the June monthly meeting, which will be the 16th, all three fire companies independently voted to accept those bylaws. They will go into effect January 1st of 2027, letting them kind of finish the year out under the current bylaws that they're already following. If for those of you that aren't quite aware what bylaws are, just to give you a 30 second breakdown, bylaws are pretty much the rule book for how a fire company operates, tells everything about how a member is brought on board, how you elect officers, what their duties and responsibilities are, how decisions are made, such as financial matters, how problems are handled, things of that nature. This is not how a fire company operates on fire scenes, things of that nature. That'll be kind of governed under the standard operating guidelines. Joint SOGs are probably going to follow here real soon. We'll probably be starting that up to kind of work with our volunteer fire companies so that we can kind of standardize that aspect of our fire companies. But if anybody has any questions, I'll be more than happy to answer.

Thank you. And we appreciate the hard work that you and the representatives from these companies brought to the table to get this done. We have significant anniversaries even coming up for these fire departments that have been working completely independently, and it's great to see them working together on something like this. Any questions from council? Okay, now we will move on to building permit report for the month of June. Mr. Spenley, anything you need to highlight there?

No, I'm happy to answer any questions anybody has about anything specific in the report.

Okay, any questions from council?

Okay.

Okay, hearing none. We now it is time for liaison reports. Personnel, Mr. Cicciotti.

There was no meeting.

Thank you. Volunteer Firefighter Steering Committee. We will have a meeting, I believe, in a week and a half. Yep. The end of July. So no meeting. And we met at this time. Is there any public comment on public safety? Perhaps.

Good evening Council, Don Harrison, 1373 Hedwood Drive, Allison Park. One thing comes to mind as far as the fire marshal just presented with the new hookups that you're putting on all hydrants. If a hydrant doesn't have one of those current new standards, how does that affect how you guys do your job? If you come into an area that is owned by a private citizen or resident, and how do you hook up to that hydrant without hassle? Is that a problem? No. So there's really no difference as far as hooking up? Okay. So... How did we come up with a timeframe of giving them, the township's been doing this for quite a while, working on it and rolling this out. How did we give those residents that own those hydrants as much time as we did? Is there not a reason why we don't have that happen sooner than later? Is there a reason why we wouldn't have that happen sooner than later as far as from a safety standpoint? Because obviously we're doing it for a reason. So, if we're doing it for a reason, why don't we implement that sooner? For the cost of the community. Instead of just what the township did, there's 1st, they did the 1st wave where it's 75%. I don't know numbers were given as far as what the percentage was. It was left of the people that only privately own them. Should they be wise that date so far? I think that date should be moved up sooner. It's safe. It's a safety thing. It's a safety thing for the firefighters. It's a safety thing for the residents.

Thank you for somebody can answer that.

It'd be great.

Thank you for your comments.

To answer your question, yeah. When Fire Marshal Wisner reports 75% are complete, that's 75% of public hydrants are complete. The private hydrant notification letter was sent out. We passed an ordinance that had that information in it at the last meeting. You need to give leeway to private property owners and let them have time to be able to purchase, acquire, and install these. A year may sound like a long time, but through letters and secondary notifications, a year is fairly reasonable to have folks comply. Fire departments still have the adequate tools to hook up to the hydrants that they need to, so there is not an implication to public safety.

Thank you, Mr. Swinn. Any further public comment on public safety at this time? Hearing none, we will move to facilities management. And Mr. Schwemm, will you be summarizing for us today?

Yes, public works reports in your packet. I want to thank Diane for putting that all together. She did a great job. And for the information we received from our traffic control division, the mechanics, and the foreman, which fill your packet with information. If you have any questions about any projects that they've completed, please feel free to ask. The public works situation that's on everybody's mind right now is of course the sinkhole that formed on Cumberland Road near Babcock. That appeared last Sunday evening. Later into the evening, emergency crews reported to the scene. They barricaded it so that we could have it safe for public. There is a large pipe. It's a 36-inch diameter corrugated metal pipe that has been televised and found to have failed underneath the road. That pipe connects to a manhole in the road that has a few McCandless storm sewers that we accepted in 2009 at the top, as well as a state 21-inch pipe from Babcock, as well as the 36-inch pipe carries water from UPMC Passive and under the road and towards the pond in front of now LaRoche, who recently just acquired that property. So the emergency crew, the emergency repair started today. The UPMC has contracted with Jet Jack and Independent Enterprises to complete that repair. The repair should take approximately 10 days is what we're hoping from the time that they put the shovels in the ground today until we're paved and reopened. So weather dependent, that's the timeline that we've been advised of.

Thank you. Thank you. Does that have any questions for Mr.

I have a comment on that. Mr. Schwinn, I think you've done a great job in the absence of a director of DPW in keeping the department focused. DPW folks can do an awful lot of things. They've saved us literally hundreds of thousands of dollars each year with their expertise and not going having to go outside Keeping the foot on the pedal and keeping them moving forward is what you did, John. And I appreciate you doing that while we're in search of a new DPW chief. Thank you.

Appreciate it. And a brief update there. We have first round interviews. We had a number of candidates apply. We have nine, I believe, who we're going to offer first round interviews to beginning this week and into next week. We'll narrow that down to a smaller field for second round interviews and hope to have a position offered here sometime in early August.

Great. Thank you. Now, at this time, we'll move to liaison reports. The Environmental Advisory Committee. Mr. Hickerson is not here. I don't know. They did meet. And the report is in your packet if you have any questions.

Okay.

And I'm sure Mr. Hickerson will answer them if you have questions for him. Ad hoc Stormwater Management Committee. Mr. Babich.

We did not meet.

Thank you. Now, at this time, is there any public comment on facilities management?

Hi, good evening. Marcia Caliendo, 10529 Abbey. I was hoping council might be able to address the cost of the sinkhole. It sounds by reading the paper that maybe UPMC is responsible for a good bit of it, but is the town itself liable for any portion of the repair? Thank you. Thank you for your comment.

Mr. Swinton, I believe we're working with UPMC at this time and that's yet to be.

To answer that question, that roadway was dedicated to the town in 2009. There was an ordinance passed where we accepted it and where we accepted certain stormwater structures attached to an exhibit with that project. This pipe that failed was not identified in that exhibit as something that we accepted. We've notified UPMC of this. They agreed to begin the work and to contract directly with this third-party contractor. However, In a world run by lawyers, we don't know how that's going to play out until it plays out in the end. But what I'll tell you right now is UPMC has the contract. They have the signed agreement. Independent Enterprises is working for them. What the town offered to do to collaborate to get this road reopened is to help manage the project with our gateway engineers on site. That'll do two things. One, make sure that it's put back to our standards, which is important. And then number two, give us a little bit of control over how the project runs. hopefully in the end when we work this out with UPMC we'll be able to take that pipe over officially and it will be McCandless infrastructure once it's installed properly you know corrugated metal pipe is not an accepted type of pipe that we would use under the road anymore that was installed sometime prior to 1964 so we know we know that much but to be continued on the cost estimate thank you thank you is there any further comment on facilities management

And say none now we will move to all the parts of the services committees that begin with the McCann was township sanitary sorry, Mister at the essay.

The June 4th minute meeting minutes or were approved Thursday they were e-mailed to all the council members earlier today, I believe any questions please let me know.

Any questions from Australia. Hearing none, Michaelis Franklin Park, Andy Winslet Authority, Mr. Cercetti.

Things are going great over there. Last meeting, we had the presentation of their audit and they found nothing of concern or note, which is awesome news. Great.

Thank you. And any questions for Mr. Cercetti at this time? And now, I'm also in Pettit's Highway Authority, Mr. Babbage.

They are moving through the process of setting up their 2027 to 2030 strategic plan. And it was Irene Caliendo's last meeting. So we're excited to see further.

Thank you. Any questions for Mr. Babich? And thank you, Ms. Caliendo, for many years of working with the library authority. I'm sure you'll be missed there. Any public comment on service committee at this time? Okay. Next step is all business and there is no business. Moving to new business. We have a motion concerning ordinance 1572. Thank you.

Motion to approve an ordinance of the town council, the town of McCandless, Allegheny County, Pennsylvania, authorizing and approving the town's entrance into an intergovernmental cooperation agreement with the North Hills Council of Governments and other participating municipalities to permit the town to participate in a composting agreement.

Thank you. We have a motion to move to second, please. Second. Thank you, Ms. Holt. Okay. Questions or do we have any, does this need further explanation, Mr. Schwendt? This is regarding our campus, our March agreement, which I know our residents really appreciate that.

Right. The one thing I'll point out, it had been a number of years since this agreement. request minor pricing changes based on cost of equipment. They have some failed pieces of equipment. They have cost of the operator. Everybody who was part of this did agree to participate again, but I will make my comment as follows, which is one of the things that is slightly outdated, I'll say in our charter, is the fact that if the municipality enters into an intergovernmental cooperation agreement, an ordinance has to be passed. There are not, correct me if I'm wrong, Mr. Solicitor, there are not many other municipalities in the state who would require that.

Only McCandless and any other home rule communities that would require it. The law was changed about five or six years ago that those agreements can be adopted by resolution.

So as we think about the future and our charter, there are a few things in there that are not really relevant anymore, I think. And the solicitor and I have started a conversation with council about suggestions we would make to change a few of those things in the charters. Anybody knows that would have to go into a ballot. Wouldn't happen this year. It may happen sometime next year though. But there are a few things that could help save the time and money regarding this. Those are my comments.

Thank you. Any further questions or comments from Council before about disapproving this ordinance impact what we would do going forward?

No. Thank you.

I think this is one of the benefits that we have, very active members of the COG, that we get the preferred pricing and the cooperation with other communities in our area. And I'm really happy that we're still strongly members of that. And Mr. Gergetti is even our president there right now. Thank you. So at this time, all in favor of approving ordinance 1572, please respond by saying aye. Aye. Any opposed? Any motion carries. May I have a motion concerning ordinance 1573? I will do that.

I would move to approve an ordinance of the town council of the town of McCandless, Allegheny County, Pennsylvania, amending part five of the town code of ordinances traffic code to designate a new stop intersection and to authorize the placement of a new stop sign on Pine Mountain Lane at the intersection with Newhart Boulevard.

Thank you.

Do we have a second, please? Second.

Thank you, Mr. Babbage. Okay, any we have to for would you like to respond with this so you share the letter with us and I appreciate that you know the need for the stop signs.

Yes, ma'am, I mean for me to say the reasons you know that you've had a number of plans over the years about how there's a new software on my mouth issue. We work over us create a problem relations vehicles pedestrian cyclists So I think it's probably something long overdue.

Chief, just a point, a question. What specifically was the process used to determine that this was a dangerous intersection? Because we have a lot of dangerous intersections and we have a lot of issues

that would be solved by putting a stop sign in other areas of town so could you tell me specifically what the criteria was used in this particular instance so we looked at some we looked at crashes while there isn't there's no inordinate amount i think the fact that it's the intersection with the slope of the roadway that comes into you know rapine mountain Comes into Newark Boulevard. As I said, Mr. Wally, we've had some complaints. And I believe management has had some complaints.

Yeah, and I think it's important to delineate the difference between a dangerous intersection and an uncontrolled intersection. So this is a T intersection where there has never been any stop sign at all. So right now, anybody can go any direction without stopping. That's uncontrolled. This should have had a stop sign when the town accepted that road.

I guess I understand that. But I rode past there the other day. And there is no obstruction to the line of sight. So a reasonable person would utilize caution pulling out a mountain line drive onto Newhart. Am I wrong about that?

I guess it depends. It's circumstantial, I would say.

Okay. And if you don't mind, Mr. Wall, that is in Ward 2, and you may have visited it, but I have obviously people that live there that travel it every day, more than once a day, and really have raised concerns that I did escalate then through channels to make sure that we investigated it appropriately.

And I am not denying that this deserves a stop sign. I'm not. I believe you were doing the right thing with this. I just want to point out that the process has to be the same for every stop sign that we put in. And to be honest with you, there are other areas Mr. Schweden may disagree with me. There are other areas of the town, whether they're uncontrolled or they're unsafe, but we should have some sort of stops on. That was my whole point.

Thank you. I think it's important to note that these are all, this was, both roads are public roads as well. Any further questions or discussion from council? Okay. All in favor of approving ordinance 1573, please respond by saying aye.

Aye.

Any opposed? No. Motion carries 6-0. At this time, I'd like to welcome any non-agenda comments from our members of the audience.

seeing none we will mr hudson this says non-agenda items but it was but with what was just spoke about can i ask a question on the ordinance it was just passed

Do you like to just make a comment? Yes, I can make a comment.

Going off of what Mr. Walts said, do we have a process in place for actually doing investigations on something like this that we do come up with a standard that you have to meet the criteria A, B, C, D, 1, 2, 3 to be able to go and do something like that? Or is it sort of just an ad hoc Look at it and go, well, I think this 1 needs it. That 1 doesn't need it. Is there something we have in place for that? If we don't. Is it something we could put in place so that. People as the general public can look at and go well, obviously we don't we don't meet this criteria. So I shouldn't waste council's time or Mr. Schwinn's time or the police department's time because. It doesn't meet the criteria of what you really need to go and do something like that. So as I think in the future to make things consistent, could we do something like that? That's all I have. Thanks.

Thank you for your comment. Regent Martin, Grubbs Road. I just want to say thank you for answering questions when I'm sitting there thinking, oh, I wish you would answer that. You did, and I appreciate that when you can. Thank you.

Thank you for your comment. Is there any further comment from our audience tonight? Okay, we were. Would you like to share?

Yep.

That Council will adjourn to executive session to discuss. The sinkhole and we. And we will be discussing forward litigation matters that are pending in the Allegheny County Court of Common Pleas. The first case is SA-26597. And then three other cases that have been appealed, SA-2652, SA-251366, and SA-25356. And that's all.

Thank you. We have a motion to adjourn to executive session. Thank you, Mr. Wall. Second?

Second.

Thank you, Mr. Babich. All in favor of adjournment to executive session, please respond by saying aye. Aye. Any opposed? Okay, motion carries. Thank you very much, everyone.