call please mr sylvester mrs merrell present mr stiegel present mr ball present mr berquist here mr arcuri here mr lewis here mrs mrs jonesrolla here all right let's please all rise for the pledge of allegiance i pledge allegiance to the flag of the united states of america and to the republic for which it stands one nation under god indivisible with liberty and justice for all all right next on the agenda would be approval of the minutes of the regular council meeting of august 11th two thousand and fourteen i move that the minutes be approved as written second any other comments changes suggestions all those in favor say aye aye opposed nay i abstain i was absent one absentia all right that makes it six zero one next special reports none there are none shocking next audience comments this is a portion of the agenda in which a member of the audience can come up and have five minutes to talk about an issue or item that is not on the agenda this would be for a non agenda item do i have anyone in the audience that would like to come up and speak at this time all right good evening i'm gina seminole one hundred and sixteen windermere court i just have a request in regards to the property that's located behind windermere court that you guys own can somebody come out and mark what your property is back there compared to what our homeowners association owns there are markers on the side closest to the houses but not out into the retention pond or on the other side of the retention pond that would require a survey crew which would require money it's not marked anywhere already cause there are two four by four posts closest to our properties but there's nothing on the other side of the retention pond already that maybe is was there at a certain point that we just can't see anymore or was it never marked are you looking for like a real accurate delineation or are you just looking for as accurate as possible it has to do with our insurance company and insurances and we're trying to make sure whose property is what and it also goes along with dealing with this energy or this issue with first energy which i know is on the agenda for later but we need to figure out what we own versus what the property is owned by peters township wouldn't a plan reflect our open space oh it does but i just need it marked somehow you wouldn't be able to tell in the field well again there's no reason for us to go out and pay money to have it surveyed cause we don't have an issue you're requesting it i don't think we have a problem you pay for the survey that they would come out and perform that task i have certainly no objection givin her a copy of the plan even though it's a record i mean she already has the plan i just need it marked the growth back there it's so overgrown it could already very well be marked and we just can't see it cause like i said there's two four by fours closest to the homes and i can't imagine that it wasn't marked on the other side we just can't find it surprising that they're not there we'll check and see if the markers are there we'll take that step first okay yeah that's all i'm requesting is have planning go out and take a look at it that would be awesome i would appreciate it i don't see us spending the money to have a survey done i understand completely thank you very much yep anybody else in the audience would like to speak on a nonagenda item all right see no one stepping forward let's move on to unfinished business and we have nothing on the agenda for that and we'll go to new business first item on the agenda is a request by don riser one hundred and fourteen windermere court peters township to join in litigation against first energy thank you very much for getting me on the agenda this evening i appreciate that a little update several homeowners throughout peters township has have retained dickie mccamey chilcote a pittsburgh firm to represent their interests in this battle with first energy that's progressing papers have been filed in washington county we've talked about this or i've mentioned it to you before that because it is in our opinion a property issue we would like the council to consider joining in on that litigation okay i'd like to also note that again along those lines they have first energy has started to cut along maple lane longview and contrary to what they continue to tell us they are leaving brush they're leaving stumps they're leaving logs they're not doing exactly what they've told you folks and continue to tell us at various points as we've talked about well i don't know if their comments about leaving brush was i thought it was pretty much just for the windermere location i don't know that it was a universal it was not a universal we're gonna do it for everybody okay you were special in their mind's eye so whether they don't do it for you or not i i can't determine that yet but that's what might be my understanding of our discussion with them they were willing to do it in that area not in windermere they don't do it i know i just drove up to state college and there's power lines big ones everywhere and i noticed they're all pretty much underneath pretty clear and if you if the council were to look at maple in particular it's very unsightly on what they've done because they've just cut and dropped and this right along the roadway very unsightly so i appreciate that mr zuck would that be considered something that would be a property maintenance issue that someone might file a complaint about well it's it's the right of way through we're the property owner correct john and they have a right of way through our property i'm not sure that would be a question well i'm not sure what are they leaving they're leaving large large limbs and brush that they've cut they've had they had done some chipping and there's piles of chipping along the roadway so to your question i'm not exactly sure if that's on the right of way for peters township road or the property owner but in driving the power lines which i do routinely it is very unsightly and again different than what they've told us but to mr berquist's comments that could've been just for individual property owners but it might be something you care to look at we could look at it john yeah i'm just concerned that our recourse may be against the property owners as opposed to west penn under the then their recourse would be back to first energy right depends on what the right of way says too they might have the obligation to put it back also interesting to note up there as we progress with the legal piece of this the right of way for some of those properties up there is not recorded and is gonna become an issue for first energy because there is no right of way recorded in washington county any other discussion on this members of council if i if i might just briefly if i could just kind of summarize what it is that the township has at this point just so you're aware before you have any discussions of whether you wanted to get involved in the suit we have basically four areas where the township still has property where there's right of way that west penn wishes to go into the first one starting at the edge of peterswood park there is i can be a is right here by the rec center you can see right here by the rec center we own this lot they'll be comin through here and here basically the intent they feel can go in and basically mow that kinda brush hog it and that's their primary thing on that that piece of property that goes right up against the windermere property that is let me see if i can just nope went too far that we own property on it doesn't show well here oh no here it is whoops that we own property on here and then there's those trees it may do it better with this this is the same property so these are these are the trees here this is our pond so they'd be coming up through there and then then we own property along hidden valley road that goes out to maple starts off at hidden valley here and it cuts up across there's an open space and the power line is basically right up here and then it and then there's a small parcel of it that it oops it didn't show that that is also along maple lane right in this area here so those are the those are the areas that the township has now that area on hidden valley between maple and hidden valley that they would go in there and basically cut that and in that area they would definitely leave any that's there so that is their proposals for all of those they were supposed to give us a drawing and they didn't have it put together yet for an ultimate landscape plan around the stormwater pond in windermere which they're still supposed to be giving us and we've asked for the same they told us the same that right yeah it will be forthcoming right and they haven't started any of the work on our properties no we've put em on hold and they've submitted these drawings and we haven't approved em waiting to see what council wants to do there's work plans in your docket for all those properties so again just well mr smith what do you think about i did have occasion to speak with counsel from dickie mccamy they contacted me last week and even in the past i did some of my own looking around for the residents just to see what would be the potential causes of action and the consensus was for me at least sight unseen i haven't reviewed any easements would be are they exceeding the scope of the easement because the easement may not speak to removal versus maintenance or trimming and what's the course of dealing between the parties this has been going on for years and years and years everybody may have their own set of facts they did ask and i asked them to put together and i have yet to see and i know the lawyers so i can sure i could call them but i have not seen the copy of the complaint i didn't know they filed so part of the analysis would we'd have to look at to see if we had common interests in terms of i think the board has common interest in terms of they understand the plight of the residents and they don't like what's going on but from a standpoint of are we an actual party to this we have easements just like you do they may be the same ones i don't know so it's hard for me to advise the board at this juncture to say yeah let's sue where our easement may be way more involved than yours even if the board was inclined to do that but i do think there's a there's a chance or there's an opportunity just because again the course of conduct we've had residents come in each month or each meeting and say in the past they've only trimmed it they've only cut it they allowed us to plan certain trees and now they're having us remove them so are there estoppel issues here are there reliance issues there may be and those are the the lawyers from dickie were thinking along the same lines we were sharing the same thoughts although they had taken it a step further because they did in fact have your easements and they did believe that it didn't speak to these issues and that the removal was they didn't think was inclusive in that particular easement in the scope so i think that's probably if they filed that's what they did now you know we would have to get it in writing but they indicated that they would basically do the bulk of the work but i said you know we still we got in we wouldn't get in on behalf of the residents the township would have to appreciate the same issues as to their easements and want to combine these issues so i think that the prudent course of that's why i was hoping to have em in advance of this meeting i didn't know they filed but if they could get us a copy of the complaint that i could evaluate along with our particular easements so that we may be different we may be the same and that doesn't mean the board says let's go forward you may still not wanna invest your money as to whether they're gonna take the trees out of our area or not in order to fight them so well i believe we do have one easement because we had that meeting oh we have we have mr lewis and i requested a copy of it and they gave it to us and i think it might've been the windermere one and i mean it was pretty specific about they could do whatever they basically wanted yeah and that made it i do have the easements for all those all our properties oh you do no and the board has not authorized me to investigate any time or effort i have sort of investigated on my own outside of our doctrines but i have yet to receive those from the township so that that's something if that the board wants i can review in conjunction with the lawsuit they filed with with their particular easement just to see what may be similar what may be different as to whether or not we have a common cause of action and if the board would wanna do it they may not wanna expend the money to save twenty feet of tree they that's something that's gonna be up to them if there is a viable claim i certainly don't object to having counsel review our position i do recall that our meeting with first energy people i walked away from that meeting with a very favorable opinion of what they were presenting to us and i'm not in essence ready to jump on board and say we wanna take an attack against what i consider to be a reasonable plan but i'd like to know an assessment and that's just my own thoughts no i would agree with you i'd like to see to see that my opinion that you go forward to review the easements and see what your thought process is on anything that we might be able to accomplish by that i one hand i am extremely sympathetic to the residents of windermere and to all residents that are impacted by this first energy action the other hand we also have twenty thousand some other residents that aren't directly impacted by it and before we spend all taxpayer money we have to be very aware that it's money well spent fully appreciate that and i fully appreciate what the council has done so we have stick that under you know there's that's one of the difficult things about sitting in this seat is you wanna do something but sometimes you're unable to but i think if we have a reasonable chance of being able to join in this with with some probability of success i would be for it right and i also think there's gonna be a cost benefit analysis we have to see once i sit down what's it gonna cost for you to save x amount of cutting and does that make sense to you but if you could get me or maybe i can ask mr stone to just forward me a copy of whatever was filed do you know what was filed was there a complaint or just a writ filed writ filed okay so there's no substantive filing yet just a writ not that i'm aware of as of as we speak okay so once we get that hopefully by the next meeting he'll have filed the rest of that and we can look at it then but that which has been filed at this point would be sufficient to preclude first energy continuing to work in windermere no all that would be if it's a writ is just notice to them that they've been sued they i suspect they haven't asked for an injunction yet i know they planned on it so i'm sure we woulda read about that somewhere along the way but yeah they could arguably move forward they'd have to find the complaint too yeah they'd have to file the complaint or they could ask for the that'd be account yes for the jurisdiction so i know that's in the works that may have been done today i'm just not sure yeah that's fine we'll i'll get with your counsel and he can send me what he has i appreciate that and again mr berquist thank you very much yeah i would make a motion that we allow mr smith to review our our easement policy and come back with an opinion as to what he thinks our our our options are second having reviewed those easements motion's made and seconded any further discussion all those in favor say aye aye opposed nay sounds like unanimous seven to zero thank you stay right there cause i didn't wanna walk back to my chair cause you got a request by donald riser at one hundred and fourteen windermere court to peters township owned open space property in the windermere plan you didn't understand my no the last time we had this conversation i've had my wife explain no to me a couple times but generally speaking you know i'm with you on that then i wanted to get it up on the on the agenda i think last time we spoke mr berquist it's something that may require some more action on council's part either to put it to bid or an executive session but again i wanted to make it very clear that was not a flippant comment i made at the last meeting i'm very serious about that i wasn't trying to say flippant either no and and i i i fully understand that but this will have a significant impact on my property value and i fully understand that township if if we were to lose this with first energy and those trees are removed peters township's not gonna be in a position to come back in and replant and meet whatever requirement first energy puts out there i would like to take that on i'm very serious about that property there so if there is anything that i need to further do or if the county well if i recall though and i think it was an email you might've sent that you mentioned that you wanna take the property but not the retention pond not the retention pond or your access road that's where all the risk and hassle is we'd be happy to sell you them i have no problem just to kind of go ahead mr smith do you have any comments on this just to reiterate you know the way this property was recorded and dedicated to the township it states that the property has to be kept in permanent open space and that it's owned by the township and that's where all the difficulties in trying to sell to an individual property owner although i would disagree that if if if those trees were removed we normally would go back in and put some type of landscape screen around the pond and in fact you know one of the things we are we do have funding that we're getting from west penn for the materials that were removed in the park and we would be able to use em in that location to replace trees if they were removed of course you've been promised by first energy for a proposed landscaping plan right for that area in the windermere plan for in peterswood park in windermere and around the pond yeah but doesn't mean they're gonna pay for it they'll give us some money for it they've offered most residents fifty gift cards for every five trees we've already been there they owe us five thousand five hundred for peterswood which we could use well like i said the the there's very little opportunity that we would we would sell the property to you cause it is an issue it's a difficult issue to overcome only we've had that issue several times driveway they wanted the swap and bunker hill the solicitor wrote a lengthy memo and it was pretty complicated as i recall and we can share that memo if the board wants with that was a swap that was not that was a swap but that time but what about with that you had to get court approval and you had to show some overriding government i think that was the only thing to even made that even fees possible was we weren't gonna lose open space cause we were gonna trade it off right i don't see how and even then it was a real minefield i don't see how okay we'll give you a copy of his of his thesis thesis i appreciate that and i will not badger the council but honestly i'm not gonna be done with this just yet the stormwater pond too though we're not gonna keep that hassle and sell the land would that would that make it easier if i took that on i don't think it's gonna be any different i don't know that we can sell it to an individual yeah i think it would be understood and again i don't wanna badger council you folks have been very great but again i'm very serious about that probably will not be the last time i'm up here but i honestly have to do a lot more research i'll wait to see what council provides for me to come back and face this again we'll have somethin next meeting you think well we have if the board wants me to just share what we've already done we can just forward that yeah we have that memo yeah and some okay that'll give me the right direction i appreciate it on this back the tree issue yeah yeah if your counsel provides me with what they filed or what they're going to file then i'll be in a better position to evaluate our easements against the cause of action that you're bringing and that might even be under unfinished business maybe alright i always like to have something under that all right thank you thank you thank you very much all right next item on the agenda would be the revised traffic control plan for the whispering pines plan for ted taylor builders am i surprised by not seeing him here he's here is he he's right there okay he's blending in he has the same shirt on as the seat so that's why he's i'm sorry boss michael do you wanna yeah just briefly if council recalled mr taylor was here a few months ago requesting permission to not install the left turn restricting island there and also since then he's also requested to remove the proposed traffic calming lines within the development based on two factors one is that the plan is no longer going through into the woodlands of peters township plan and then also the front one on boyer because of then there was now stop signs at boyer or bebout and bower hill and so based on that and the arguments that they made it not feasible to be able to drive into the plan they're asking to waive that requirement they did go to the planning commission planning commission did concur and and now we're here before council and traffic our traffic planning engineer he also concurred correct yes ready go ahead go ahead ted taylor monisha the township i agree with the township engineer the township planning department the township planning commission i might add one more point it's about one hundred and thirty five degree if you're coming from boyer going toward monisha and you wanna turn left to the back towards mcmurray we have trucks coming in and out of that plan and for them to make that turn they have to try two times pull out in the second lane of traffic back up and turn again to make that one hundred and thirty five it's probably more than one hundred and thirty five degree turn and that's not safe and i think it's much improved the way it's been with the four stop signs at froebe and bebout plus a stop sign going out of boyer and i can remember when we started this plan that the residents of boyer didn't wanna have to come down the way you're telling me to go come out now so i don't feel that it's to anyone's interest to make that the way it is as it is now i wanna change as the township engineer and the traffic engineer propose i'm agreeing with that if the residents would want put a twenty five foot twenty five mile speed limit on that road i'd be all for that if that's what they're complainin about what's the speed limit on that road now it's twenty five i don't think there's any sign it's twenty five now i've never seen a sign there may not be a sign but it is a twenty five okay that's it thank you mr taylor all right anybody in the audience want to talk about this agenda item i do yes sir my name is virgil colussy i live on boyer road i've been there this is my anniversary year fifty two years that's a long time and last time was here in front of the council they talked about buildin down there on old ronk property and when they built down there i was one of the guys that stood up and said that a guy has a right to build on property he bought but he has no right to change all our living conditions where we are now the attribute of the whole thing in my opinion is that road off what'd they call it that lane at comin out of the that silver crest drive should be out onto bebout road with an adequate safety signal to turn left or right he's right they can't turn on that road and i told him that in the first place remember one thing ladies and gentlemen when the younger people come in there and they have children and they gotta make a drive on there you're going to have a fatality because where you put the stop signs on top of the road up there which is a help but even i pull out of there to go from boyer on there the moment you get across there somebody's giving you the finger or tellin ya i'm tellin you they think that's a speedway there and that speed limit should be reduced all the way from the pond down because they buildin it right where ronk's property is and they're buildin across the road and they're gonna put a two hundred vehicles on that road a day ted taylor's plan when do you have forty families i heard it's supposed to be forty two homes there i might be wrong on that them are rumors i hear but that's not right i even went to the internet and looked at the school bus thing school bus average school bus is forty foot long when you come out of when you come out of boyer road even if you make a left turn there by the time you get across there that guy comin down after that stop sign that bus'll never make it you're gonna have a fatality there sure as god made green apples either there or down below because there is a sharp bend down at the bottom the other day two days ago no last wednesday it was i went to pick up a guy lived across the road there and i come out you can't see him you can't hear him a guy comes around the bend forty mile an hour maybe fifty mile an hour he didn't he didn't go behind me he just went around the bend on a double line pass i mean if there was another car comin down he woulda hit me we have to change the speed limit ladies and gentlemen that you got bebout what's the speed limit on bebout on bebout everything i'm talking about it refers to this building what they're doin right now you have a speed limit of twenty five mile an hour down there road you have twenty five mile an hour speed limit at orchard highlands there is no reason that we can't do that here now this you're right it's changed the stop sign you guys put up there i think it helps me because when i get up there now i can get through that intersection sometimes you just can't get through it right well i think that that's a state road is it not yeah yeah that's a state road to get the stop signs well we were advocating for years to get it that was ultimately a state decision now we can make a request to well i'm gonna i have a call in to senator smith i'm going to go see him and i'm going to appeal to him that see if we can do something about that because all my children are grown but somebody else's children aren't grown right and you're gonna have a problem and oh the other thing is when they put the gas line in down there they dug up all the stones that was all cut grass twenty years ago when they put the sewage system in that place they had an inspector do we have a township inspector comes around if we is he's nonexistent cause i haven't seen him inspector for what well to see what they put their land back the way they found it that's fair i think that's fair you talkin about the road i'm talkin about the side of the road oh and by the way that road the trucks have gone off the road broke the edge of the road and track it's crazy i'm telling you they're utter disregard for the people you talkin boyer road boyer road everything i'm tellin you is truthful as i can be and just not right i'm tellin you a forty mile an hour is nothing on that road yeah it just it's changed so drastically since i've moved out here the first one that first brought me out here i thought they were takin me out to the boondocks but i love it out here but i tell you what it's gettin bad you gotta do something about the roads you gotta get that speed limit down at least from the pond up that should be twenty five mile an hour well we have again and i'm totally understanding what you're saying we have speed limit issues throughout this township well but see that's a main highway there that's a little different when you get a forty mile an hour highway that means they're goin fifty and you know what i'm saying you know even i'm maybe guilty of goin over thirty five no no i wouldn't do that right i didn't think so yeah i know but anyhow i don't remember if you think and i drew up a schematic and i wasn't even gonna put it on there but when them school buses go up that road and they pulled out on that road goin up the road toward boyer road from my house believe me ladies and gentlemen that is dangerous that is i wouldn't want my kids on that bus you're saying making the left out of boyer down at the bottom part well that's just as bad cause i went to mr sylvester and we had a little talk and i asked if he would get a vehicle to go down there and i called him i talked to him the other today he said they had a fire truck which is fine but i told them bring a put a school bus on there and i wanted him to make a turn see see what he thinks and what mr taylor says is right that's dangerous he's right you know but the answer is across from crest lane onto the main road with appropriate stop signals that will take care of that business and i want by the way i wish somebody gets on the gas company and tell em to come put some dirt out there and do that over again cause it was when they damage the property my understanding is they should reclaim it and put it back in original condition it was in does that make sense or not that's pretty close to correct that's what they're supposed to do well they don't do it i don't i don't even know if you have an inspector well we we try to check all the areas we possibly can my wife we had a big issue as you know down well my wife told me not to get excited but i can't help it sometime i just that just me that's okay okay thank you thank you thank you sir is there anyone else in the audience who'd like to speak hi hi ladies and gentlemen i'm sarah seitz i live at six hundred and fifty five boyer we will have lived in our house which is the direct center of the seven homes that are were originally on boyer we will have been there for a year on october 18th but we've been residents of boyer for the past almost seven years we rented a house that is behind tom's first house it's hidden but it's part of boyer so we've been residents there for quite a while and we've always enjoyed living on a nice quiet road we used to kinda walk and hike through the woods where what is now whispering pines so you know it's kind of not the best thing to us that there's a new now a new plan there but it's fine you know it's okay since we've moved there though the the no left turn sign has been our only saving grace i come not only representing my little family my two boys my husband and myself but all of us on boyer i'm trying to not get emotional sorry so anyway the no left turn sign is pretty much the only thing we have that prevents not only the cars going up the road but all of the construction vehicles that have been working and nobody regards the speed limit if a cop were to sit there and it has happened but of course probably no cars went by when the police officer was sitting there but i cook in my kitchen all day long and my window is right there front and center boyer road and i you know when we first moved in i started i thought oh i'm gonna write down the companies who are speeding and then i'm gonna call the police and let them know all these lawbreakers well forget that because it's impossible to count not only the names of these companies and people but the times of day i mean it's absolute it's out of control my boys and i love to go for walks we can no longer walk on boyer road because there is you know there's no sidewalk there's absolutely no safety whatsoever because a car coming down from the bottom up the road you can barely see they can't see us we can't see them because they're coming around a corner where there's a lot of you know greenery coming from the top the same thing cars absolutely fly so i don't feel safe walking on the road so like i could picture speed what did they call it speed bumps being a possible solution but you know cause i mean no one's gonna wanna speed and ruin their car over the bumps i could picture sidewalks being a possible solution it really makes me sad to think that the one little thing we have that people don't even obey it says no left turn i can't even tell you how many cars and trucks come out of there up the road and i and we've stopped several saying did you read the sign you're not allowed to come up this way and they say oh we can't move our trucks we can't help it well they disregard the sign so i mean i guess really if you take out the sign it doesn't matter much anyway but i feel like i really owe it to my children to come and speak up for for us we really us seven houses there we are the front and center people of boyer road the people in the plan no you know they this won't affect them whatsoever but us the seven houses my boys that are the future of boyer road you know we just wanna have a nice place to live we just wanna have a safe street to live on and we just want to be able to go for a walk we just want to be able to go for a walk on our road and not have to worry about being hit by a car i mean that's the bottom line i really understand that like mr taylor i know a lot of things go into factoring all of these details of a new plan and you know it's great it's kind of exciting because he might meet some new neighbor friends it's a new place for us to go walk up so i'm not completely you know i'm not i don't have bad feelings toward the plan in general i just would like to see our part of the street kept safe for the future of my kids it's really that's the bottom line and it just i really just can't believe that these people there's there's no law in place to protect us you know there's this i think it's the speed limit does say twenty five people don't listen there is a sign up a yellow children pedestrian type sign warning people that children live there they don't care we also have a little figure in our yard that says watch children playing nobody cares and i mean i've all but put it in the middle of the street i put it right there people speed all the time so so these are people coming down from both ways people leaving the plans making that left turn also flying down from the top so they make a left onto boyer off of bebout to go up to bower hill they're allowed to make a right exactly although they aren't allowed to speed which they do well that's a problem everywhere well not yes but like i said we don't have sidewalks we don't have anything to protect us and you there is like virgil pointed out there's a lot of trouble seeing around those curves both the bottom and the top there's a lot of greenery and when they're flying they won't see somebody that's and i'm not saying we stand in the road but there's no side of the road it's not that large of an area you know i just wanna make sure i get all my points across ideally like ideally i would love to see it be a dead end or a culdesac because up at the top that intersection is very dangerous i know you put the stop signs in and statistically hopefully that would help deter accidents or cut down cause i know there have been many but that's just not a safe place to emerge from anyway you know but at least in the very least if you could keep that sign there to at least try to help people realize oh we're not supposed to make a left like i said they don't really listen but it is the only saving grace we have yeah i think that's that's all i wanted to say oh one more point i wanna make i think is it twenty houses that are expected or is it forty forty forty houses for the new plan that's at least two cars per house in this day and age as we all know that is eighty new cars of traffic that will be entering and exiting boyer road all day long and that hasn't even begun yet i think there may be three or so houses that are lived in right now and with the even with that traffic it is it's a lot i am like afraid i'm actually so nervous about all of these people to move in and have all of this traffic going all day long jack do you wanna demonstrate how fast the cars go well he said he wanted to but anyway i think that's all i wanted to say but i just ask you please please to at least give us that that one thing just that no left turn it's it's all we have