January 2, 2001 Maidencreek Township Reorganization Meeting:
Very little changes were made to the township appointments. Two Items of note:
Tom Evanosky
Keith Schuman
are new appointments to the Park and Recreation Board. Join me in welcoming these men to the Park and Recreation Board.
January 11, 2001 Maidencreek Township Supervisors Meeting
Perhaps the news of most interest to everyone is that the supervisors will vote on the Scheaffer farm rezoning request. The developer has requested R2A. The planning commission has recommended R2. The supervisors have voted to consider the rezoning as recommended by the planning commission at the Feb. 8, 2001 meeting. In other words, the most the developer could expect to get out of this meeting is the commercial zoning and R2 zoning; R2A is off the table.
Noise Ordinance: There will be a workshop meeting to be scheduled later on the noise ordinance. I am unhappy with the ordinance as it stands. I fear it is needlessly complex. For example, it reiterates a lot of information from the Penna. Vehicle code. There is no need to put items in our noise ordinance that are already covered by other laws. This would actually generate extra work for the township and its solicitor, since when those other laws change, it would then be necessary to update the noise ordinance. The noise ordinance is in draft 2. It is substantially the same as draft 1. Rather than re-print the whole thing here I'll just highlight the differences. Draft 1 is available in the October 12 meeting. Article 4 section A (1) adds the curfew hours of 11:00 PM to 6:00 AM. Article 5 adds "snowmobile, all-terrain vehicles" after motorcycle. Article 8 section C (2) adds the curfew times of 11:00 PM to 8:00AM to "Concerts, etc."
Fee in Lieu of: The concept of Fee in Lieu of is discussed in the previous meeting. I won't repeat it here. The supervisors wish to expand fee in lieu of to commercial properties as well as residential. They have voted to allow the solicitor to draft an ordinance that would charge businesses $1,000 per new business property. This money would go for Parks and Recreation.
Why I voted against this: I voted against this for the same reasons I voted against the fee increase for residential property. The logic for the fee in the case of residential property is that residential property brings in more people that want to use our parks. I fail to see how this logic applies to business property. Perhaps some business employees would use our parks on their lunch hour, but businesses along with everyone else already pay ½ mil property tax to support the parks. To tag them with an additional fee sends the wrong message. I think it's an effort to grab money from people who you're not likely to have to answer to at the election booth.
Other Items of interest: The Martin Retirement Village has caused concern with their septic system. Its seems on occasion the system has failed and allowed sewage to leak onto neighboring property. I made a motion to authorize the the Township Manager to immediately get the solicitor to start the process of fining the owner if the SEO has any objective evidence of a sewage leak. This motion passed 3 to 0. The intent of this is to speed up the process whereby a fine for sewage leaks can be levied on this owner. It is a basic function of government to protect people's property rights, and fines are appropriate especially when they have been preceded by warnings.
There was an executive session to discuss real estate.
Paid for by Roy Timpe