Lansford starts bidding process for new garage

Lansford Borough has found a temporary home for its road crew while it plans for a new garage.

Borough council agreed to enter a lease for a garage on West Bertsch Street at a cost of $1 per year.

Meanwhile, they also started the process of receiving bids for a new garage near their existing building on West Spring Street.

Council is facing a March 23 deadline from the state to correct major issues at their current garage, or find a new location.

“We can’t wait until someone puts a padlock on the garage to do something,” Councilman Joe Butrie said.

The department of Labor and Industry noted five violations in the current garage in a letter dated Dec. 15. An exterior wall is cracked and leaning; the roof has holes which leak water; the basement ceiling has mold, rot and wood decay; the electric panel needs to be updated, and; the bathroom facilities are insufficient.

Members are still interested in building a new garage. They have a $160,000 grant from state gaming money for that purpose.

Council voted to request bids for the project in October. Their engineer estimated the cost would be $300,000, but the two bids they received were more than $460,000, and they were rejected.

Members are hoping that the timing will be better now, at the beginning of a construction season rather than at the end. They voted 5-0 Wednesday night to authorize Keystone Consulting Engineers to update the project specifications and request new bids.

The design will be the same as the one that was put out for bid in October. The garage would be a 50-by-120-foot pole building served by public water and sewer, with six equipment bays, an office area, a bathroom and a break room.

The garage on West Bertsch Street, formerly known as Frederick’s garage, will be available on April 1, at a cost of $1 per year to the borough. Council members are hoping that Labor and Industry will give them until that date to move out of the Spring Street garage.

The bid advertisement and garage lease were approved by a 5-0 vote. Council members Bob Silver and Matthew Walsh were absent.

In other business

Council also:

• Hired two part-time police officers, Thomas Sabulsky and Vincent Morrow. Morrow’s hire is pending a polygraph examination. They will be used for weekends, holidays and night shifts. Lansford has seven full-time police and two part-time, not including the new hires.

• Agreed to let Police Chief Jack Soberick look into purchasing a new vehicle to an aging SUV used by the department. Council President Jared Soto said another vote would be needed to actually authorize the purchase. The vote was 4-1, with Butrie against.

• Accepted the resignation of Donna Valent from the zoning hearing board, and appointed Ronald Derr and Douglas Knauss to the board. Derr and Knauss were also appointed to the borough recreation commission.

• Agreed to retain Hutchison, Gillihan and Freeh as municipal auditors, and Keystone Consulting Engineers as borough engineer on an as-needed basis. When a new council took over in January, they had requested bids from other firms for both services.

• Agreed to pay $8,100 for guide rails for the repaved Edgemont Bridge, concluding that project.

• Mayor James Romankow said he suspended enforcement of the parking meters because some are broken, and there is not currently a system in place to deposit change.

• Councilwoman Marie Ondrus recognized Barbara Willis, Mark Kosica and Heartland Rentals LLC for doing work to improve properties in the borough.