DUBOIS – The 10-Person DuBois/Sandy Consolidation Committee made progress this week on how the new municipality will handle water and sewer services.
DuBois City operates its water/sewer services as part of the municipality while Sandy Township operates its services through a municipal authority.
While the authority and supervisors are made up of the same board members, they still keep their accounting and operations as two separate entities.
Before the committee voted, it heard a third option that involved keeping the utilities and consolidated municipality as one entity but keeping the account separate.
City Councilmen Jim Aughenbaugh and Shane Dietz immediately motioned to continue with DuBois City’s current structure for the consolidated city.
Supervisor Bill Beers indicated that he wanted to see Eckert Seamans complete a study to identify the pros and cons of the various systems.
“I was hoping we would have a little discussion before we went right to voting,” Supervisor Mark Sullivan added. Aughenbaugh then provided his reasoning to continue with DuBois’ system:
First, he said no one on the 10-person committee has knowledge of how to even start an authority, and perhaps it should be left to the consolidated city’s elected officials.
“With so much to be done, not worrying about the creation of an authority or new accounting system is one less thing to deal with,” Aughenbaugh said.
“The Pennsylvania Economy League (PEL) said it was okay to leave it run as-is for now.” The vote passed, 6-4, to use DuBois’ current system.
All city council members voted in favor and Supervisor Barry Abbott joined them. Beers, Sam Mollica, Kevin Salandra and Sullivan were all opposed.
The board also voted to have its Solicitor Chris Gabriel and Eckert Seamans investigate what the consolidated city can do for Treasure Lake and what limitations may exist since it’s a gated community.