CLEARFIELD – Lawrence Township Police Chief Doug Clark has a warning for anyone involved in drug activity in Lawrence Township and Clearfield County as a whole.
“We are coming after you,” he said. “You’re being hunted. We will find you and we will arrest you.”
This was after Clark reported 16 drug arrests during the month of January as part of his statistical report for the supervisors’ meeting Tuesday.
The report also included a rise in arrests, served warrants and response to incidents since last year.
Supervisor Jeremy Ruffner concurred, noting that from his position at the county 911 center, he has noticed an uptick in activity from the township officers.
It was also noted that at recent court appearances, the majority of drug offenders come from the township and the state police.
The supervisors heard briefly from Clearfield Area School District Superintendent Terry Struble, who thanked the supervisors for their vote last month to deny an occupancy permit to Accessible Recovery Services for the AmeriGas building in Hyde to open a Suboxone clinic.
Struble said if the district had tried to place a bus stop outside an existing clinic, people would have said they were out of their minds.
With the railroad tracks by the building, all of the buses traveling to the junior-senior high school, as well as to the Cen-Clear building, must stop by the proposed clinic, which he and the school board consider an unsafe situation.
Roadmaster Ron Woodling asked the supervisors if they have any additional suggestions for keeping tractor-trailer trucks off of Flegal Road.
He said he has weight limit signs posted where they can be seen before trucks turn, as well as other signs to keep trucks off the road, and No Outlet signs at Pifer Road.
Yet truck drivers still follow faulty GPS devices in an attempt to find the truck stop. He said one driver exited off of Interstate 80 near the truck stop and followed the directions to Flegal Road instead of driving directly to the truck stop.
The only other solution the supervisors could think of is to begin charging the trucking companies for the cost of the township workers going out to help these drivers return to the main roads. Solicitor James Naddeo said they would need an ordinance to do so.
In other business, the supervisors approved purchase of a Ford F350 to replace work truck No. 2 as discussed at the Jan. 22 meeting. The cost of a 350 is about $2,000 more than a 250 originally discussed, which cost about $28,000.
Ruffner also thanked the handful of community members who attended the meeting as observers, noting it is nice to have people interested in the work of the township.
