{"id":25195,"date":"2015-04-07T14:20:43","date_gmt":"2015-04-07T18:20:43","guid":{"rendered":"http:\/\/www.unionvilletimes.com\/?p=25195"},"modified":"2015-04-07T14:34:58","modified_gmt":"2015-04-07T18:34:58","slug":"penndot-hit-over-birmingham-potholes","status":"publish","type":"post","link":"https:\/\/www.unionvilletimes.com\/?p=25195","title":{"rendered":"PennDOT hit over Birmingham potholes"},"content":{"rendered":"

Supervisors say they complain to no avail to state agency<\/strong><\/em><\/span><\/p>\n

By Kris Firey-Poling<\/strong><\/span>, Correspondent, The Times<\/em><\/span><\/span><\/p>\n

\"OttosPresentation\"<\/a>

Officials from Otto’s BMW present their land development plan at Monday’s Board of Supervisor’s meeting in Birmingham, Monday night.<\/p><\/div>\n

BIRMINGHAM \u2014 There\u2019s nothing like potholes to get everyone talking, as demonstrated at Monday night\u2019s township Board of Supervisor\u2019s meeting.<\/p>\n

\u201cThese potholes have created a bad situation.\u00a0 PennDOT is beyond neglect,\u201d said resident Harry Miller, during public comments.\u00a0 \u201cI know the township is not responsible for Birmingham and 926, but something needs to be done.\u00a0 This is the worst I\u2019ve seen it in 30 years.\u00a0 When drivers go around the holes, they go into the other lane.\u00a0 There\u2019s going to be a head-on collision and people will get hurt.\u201d<\/p>\n

Miller pleaded with supervisors to get PennDOT \u00a0(Pennsylvania Department of Transportation) to fix the potholes.<\/p>\n

\u201cI\u2019ve been calling and faxing PennDOT every day and they won\u2019t come out, \u201c explained Police Chief Thomas Nelling.<\/p>\n

Miller described how the local Mercedes dealer replaced 1600 tires in February of 2014.\u00a0 \u201cIt\u2019s costing people a fortune,\u201d he exclaimed.<\/p>\n

Supervisors Vice-Chairman William Kirkpatrick said that he recently wrote a letter to PennDOT.\u00a0 His letter described how he recently took two-1500 mile trips through many states, and when returning to\u00a0 Pennsylvania it was like driving into a third world country.<\/p>\n

Kirkpatrick said, \u201cI told them specifically about that 14 inch hole on 926.\u00a0 They acknowledged my letter, and promised to follow through, but have not.\u201d<\/p>\n

Miller asked if the township would consider using asphalt or other materials to temporarily fix the holes.<\/p>\n

Supervisors Chairman John Conklin stated that fixing the roads could be an issue of liability for the township.<\/p>\n

Joe Mobile, a Birmingham resident attending on behalf of Pennsylvania Representative Dan Truitt, stated that Truitt recently met with PennDOT and proposed a plan to allow townships to perform pothole maintenance.<\/p>\n

\u201cPennDOT said it is not possible for townships to do this work as it infringes on their contracts with unions, said Mobile.<\/p>\n

This explanation created many snickers and moans within the room.\u00a0 Mobile said that Truitt\u2019s office receives daily complaints, and they relay it back to PennDOT.<\/p>\n

Conklin thanked Miller for formally bringing up the topic.\u00a0 The supervisors will send letters to all their representatives.\u00a0 Conklin also encouraged residents to do the same, and to specifically state the location of dangerous potholes.<\/p>\n

In other topics, Otto\u2019s BMW presented its preliminary land development plan, using the purchased neighboring Sunoco property.<\/p>\n

The construction, to begin in late summer, will include a 20,000 square feet addition.\u00a0 Signal lights will also be added in both directions on US-202, as PennDOT did not approve the preferred strobe lights.\u00a0 The supervisors approved the plan subject to Township Engineer Jim Hatfield\u2019s recommendations and drainage clarifications.<\/p>\n

Kirkpatrick applauded the Otto\u2019s BMW group for their hard work, stating that there were no surprises and they worked well with township staff.<\/p>\n

Also, Carousel Hyundai owner Jim Diskin requested signage guidance from the Board in preparation for his upcoming Zoning Hearing Board (ZHB) meeting.\u00a0 The supervisors, along with Solicitor Kristin Camp, reviewed the business\u2019 signage history, clarified his wants, and helped him package his request.\u00a0 The supervisors agreed to leave it up to the ZHB to make recommendation for next steps.<\/p>\n

In addition, Monica Buffington, Executive Director of the Kennett Symphony, requested township permission to hold its 3rd<\/sup> Annual Beat Beethoven 5K\/1 Mile Walk<\/i> on Thursday, July 16, 2015 at 6:00 p.m. at Radley Run Country Club.\u00a0 The supervisors approved the activity, requesting signage to let residents know of the event and road closures in advance.<\/p>\n

In other news, C & H Industrial Services of Franklinville, NJ, was awarded the Nitrogen Removal Upgrade Project, at a bid of $200,455.\u00a0 According to Supervisor Scott Boorse, \u201cThis is a mandated upgrade by the DEP (Department of Environmental Protection) to the township\u2019s wastewater treatment facility to reduce effluent total nitrogen to very low levels.<\/p>\n

In his March police report, Chief Nelling cited 1324 incidents and 8061 police miles logged.<\/p>\n","protected":false},"excerpt":{"rendered":"

Supervisors say they complain to no avail to state agency By Kris Firey-Poling, Correspondent, The Times BIRMINGHAM \u2014 There\u2019s nothing like potholes to get everyone talking, as demonstrated at Monday night\u2019s township Board of Supervisor\u2019s meeting. \u201cThese potholes have created a bad situation.\u00a0 PennDOT is beyond neglect,\u201d said resident Harry Miller, during public comments.\u00a0 \u201cI […]<\/p>\n","protected":false},"author":1,"featured_media":25194,"comment_status":"open","ping_status":"open","sticky":false,"template":"","format":"standard","meta":{"footnotes":""},"categories":[3,7],"tags":[15,6961,137,6960,1912],"class_list":["post-25195","post","type-post","status-publish","format-standard","has-post-thumbnail","hentry","category-news","category-featured","tag-birmingham","tag-ottos-bmw","tag-penndot","tag-pot-holes","tag-state-rep-dan-truitt"],"_links":{"self":[{"href":"https:\/\/www.unionvilletimes.com\/index.php?rest_route=\/wp\/v2\/posts\/25195","targetHints":{"allow":["GET"]}}],"collection":[{"href":"https:\/\/www.unionvilletimes.com\/index.php?rest_route=\/wp\/v2\/posts"}],"about":[{"href":"https:\/\/www.unionvilletimes.com\/index.php?rest_route=\/wp\/v2\/types\/post"}],"author":[{"embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/www.unionvilletimes.com\/index.php?rest_route=\/wp\/v2\/users\/1"}],"replies":[{"embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/www.unionvilletimes.com\/index.php?rest_route=%2Fwp%2Fv2%2Fcomments&post=25195"}],"version-history":[{"count":1,"href":"https:\/\/www.unionvilletimes.com\/index.php?rest_route=\/wp\/v2\/posts\/25195\/revisions"}],"predecessor-version":[{"id":25196,"href":"https:\/\/www.unionvilletimes.com\/index.php?rest_route=\/wp\/v2\/posts\/25195\/revisions\/25196"}],"wp:featuredmedia":[{"embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/www.unionvilletimes.com\/index.php?rest_route=\/wp\/v2\/media\/25194"}],"wp:attachment":[{"href":"https:\/\/www.unionvilletimes.com\/index.php?rest_route=%2Fwp%2Fv2%2Fmedia&parent=25195"}],"wp:term":[{"taxonomy":"category","embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/www.unionvilletimes.com\/index.php?rest_route=%2Fwp%2Fv2%2Fcategories&post=25195"},{"taxonomy":"post_tag","embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/www.unionvilletimes.com\/index.php?rest_route=%2Fwp%2Fv2%2Ftags&post=25195"}],"curies":[{"name":"wp","href":"https:\/\/api.w.org\/{rel}","templated":true}]}}