CLEARFIELD – Clearfield Borough Council heard concerns about the Williams Street area and an update on River’s Landing at Thursday’s meeting.
Erin Flanagan spoke to council about some concerning issues with Williams Street, which was closed by ordinance due to safety concerns.
Flanagan lives at the corner of Williams and West Locust streets and detailed some of the things she has seen.
First, despite Jersey barriers at the Market Street end of Williams Street, people are still using the street.
She said the orange cones that have been placed at her end of the street are constantly being removed by people and thrown into the weeds, river, etc., and the result is vehicles go up the street and then find it is blocked.
At the opposite end, motorcycles, e-bikes, etc., are able to fit through the gaps and go up and down the street.
Also, people run the stop sign and her family has witnessed several close calls, especially one with a kid on a modified hover board that he sits on, where a truck nearly hit him.
Flanagan said they’ve spoken to the boy several times about the danger, but he doesn’t listen to them.
Council agreed that the street needs to be closed off more efficiently and will work on that.
Borough Solicitor F. Cortez “Chip” Bell noted the plan was to eventually turn the street over to neighboring property owners, but the borough will need to remove the wall and grade the slope and hasn’t had the money to do so.
Council also heard an update from Rob Swales of Clearly Ahead Development about the River’s Landing project.
He said construction is in the final phase where the contractor is finishing punch list items, and the second floor is 100 percent complete with office spaces for Clearly Ahead and an event room.
They are currently looking for an anchor tenant for the first floor, possibly a restaurant/micro-brewery set up, and he has three very interested entities who are impressed with the location along the river, close to downtown and residential areas and both the riverwalk and Rails to Trails.
The aim of Clearly Ahead is to bring in new business, not only for the anchor suite, but also the other ground floor suites and not compete with other landlords.
Clearly Ahead has partnered with Visit Clearfield County to promote River’s Landing and Swales said the data VCC has collected shows high growth in tourism dollars in the county.
In other business, council accepted a paving bid of $138,752 from Glen O. Hawbaker, pending engineer review.
Borough Operations Manager Leslie Stott said they should look at other liquid fuels projects since the bids came in much lower than expected.
Council also approved for advertising the updated ordinance for borough curfew.
Bell also suggested council review the park ordinance and nuisance ordinance for updating.
