CLEARFIELD – At the conclusion of Thursday’s Clearfield Borough committee meetings, the council held a hearing regarding 2018 Community Development Block Grant funds with Lisa Kovalick of the County Planning Office.
Kovalick began by announcing that the borough has been allotted $109,783 in funds for 2018. Funds from 2013 through 2016 were allotted for paving in the East End area of the borough. Funds from 2016 and 2017 were allotted for a flood control project for Stinky Run.
She noted that recently the county, working with the borough, was able to move about $32,955 from the Stinky Run project to the street paving project.
Also, there is about $49,975 left from the 2016 funding to put towards the Stinky Run project, which will run from Reighard Street in Lawrence Township through East End and eventually to the river.
It will include 1,063 feet of pre-cast box culvert and 1,584 feet of 60-inch corrugated plastic pipe and include 14 pre-cast concrete manholes and a double rack trash system to direct trash and debris away from the mouth of the culvert.
Earlier in the meeting, Solicitor F. Cortez “Chip” Bell confirmed that they are finalizing work on some right-of-way issues and “paper” alleyways in the project area.
One issue the borough is looking at now is areas where the project will need to go under rail beds. Borough Operations Manager Leslie Stott explained the borough pays fees for pipe under rail beds throughout the borough and budgets about $10,000 per year for the fees.
For this project, they have the option of adding additional fees to the borough budget or pay a lump sum of $80,000 to the railroad company. Kovalick said they are looking into utilizing grant funding towards that lump sum payment.
Another public meeting regarding use of the 2018 CDBG funds is scheduled for after the next council meeting, Sept. 20.
Kovalick suggested council also start thinking of future uses for CDBG funds, including additional paving in East End and using the funding for laterals and inflow and infiltration removal from the sanitary sewerage system.
She added that there is also another run in the borough that has been creating flooding issues in the borough and council agreed that it needs to be addressed.
Some of the items to be addressed at next week’s council meeting include parade routes for Halloween and Christmas, the fall clean-up schedule and installing a handicap parking sign on the 100 block of West Fifth Street.
It was noted in the finance committee meeting that the amusement tax check from the Clearfield County Fair and Park Board for this year’s Clearfield County Fair was received. The amount of $34,063.76 is about what the borough hoped for, and was more than what has been received in the past two years.