now that we're all here may we have a roll call mrs merrell present mr stiegel present mr berquist finally here mr lewis here mr arcuri here mr ball present mr kosir here please rise and join us as we pledge our 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 two sets of minutes to review or approve one is from the regular council meeting of december 12th two thousand and sixteen discussion or a motion i'll move to be approved second moved for discussion if not all those in favor please say aye aye they who'd oppose would be nay that motion carries seven zero next is to revisit a transcript of a public hearing that was held september 19th two thousand and sixteen there were a number of proposed suggested comments and or edits what we did was to go back and pull the video that was shot by peters township community television checked the areas that were of concern to mr ball where they needed to be corrected they were corrected and those that were stated as they were were left this now reflects what happened at that meeting any other discussion very difficult to really i'll make a motion that we approve the transcript do anything other than accepting second motion's been made seconded all those in favor please say aye aye i'm going to abstain i wasn't in the meeting our next opportunity here is to congratulate two of our firefighters do we have someone that has a speech or am i gonna read mine by myself we've got chief mclaughlin we also have firefighter john and firefighter hopkin with us okay and we're gonna i'm going to need to elaborate and mr mclaughlin has some things he'd like to say but we're going to show you a video of exactly what this competition is well thank you for taking the time tonight to recognize us the fire department is generally a very humble organization we don't toot our own horn but when people toot it for us we thank you and appreciating us for that when people go above and beyond what we normally do we try to recognize those things chief bill and brittany have done that throughout the entire year in two thousand and sixteen they've taken the time to go to these competitions and compete and every they compete they wear our gear they represent township the fire department and all the residents of the township as well they wear peters township proud they're very appreciative of the opportunity that they got to do this in peters township it all started in april of two thousand and sixteen when they went to fdic to compete and both of them ran so well throughout their competitions in the year that they got invited to the world challenge where over as you see in your notes four hundred and fifty firefighters from twelve different countries and twenty united states came together to compete in this competition what is the competition i can only show you the video i can't explain it they've explained it to me a couple of times i've watched it in person i've tried to do it myself it's not easy they call it the fastest two minutes in sports is it a sport well we're competing for things it really gives you the idea of the basic firefighter's skills between dragging and lifting and hitting that we take advantage of all the time so mr lowell if you would please firefighter hoffman is on the righthand side here holy cow they're lifting a hose a roll of hose up the roller hose another forty pounds and everything is precise here too if they miss stairs on the way down there's penalties if they don't drop the hose in the box there's penalties everything is under timing because it's such a close time they have to be precise with their movements as well they have to touch every stair on the way down this next maneuver is called the kaiser's sled is to simulate forcible entry the weight of that sled is one hundred and thirty pounds of sled that piece of steel that she's hitting a mallet a rubber mallet finally the dummy drag at one hundred and eighty five pounds distance of one hundred and fifty feet one hundred and six feet guys thank you for your support in this we appreciate your recognition but honestly you're recognizing these two bill and brittany have done a phenomenal job not only at the fire station and what we do but also representing the township and the fire department in broad so thank you guys can you tell us what the awards are that you have and what they're for yeah we each ran it's kinda like the olympics in firefighting we're there for a week you're running every day and even though you were invited you qualify for the challenge you every day proceeding and to see whether or not you made the finals and we both made the finals in individual candidate and relays we were all pleased with our runs brittany ended up with a bronze medal in the female tandem running with a firefighter in canada she's from alberta and sometimes when you're with a smaller department like ours as opposed to big departments and they send ten or eleven people you're looking to build teams from other departments and we both ended up with relay with relay medals brittany ran that and when it's a relay race all those six stations are split up between four and five firefighters brittany ran in natal on the final and they ended up with gold medal probably one of the most fun races to watch cause it was a pretty tight finish but they won the gold and they just missed a world record by three tenths a second and it was ninety degrees out every day it was a tough weekend i along with a two buddies we started with three we ended up having to run them in the finals without only we started with four one guy got injured so one of us had to run an extra leg but we ended up just coming in second to new zealand in the men's master relay we ended up with the silver medal so we're pleased with that and we just met a lot of great firefighters there the woman that brittany ran into in the preliminary in the video you saw is the captain to the greensboro north carolina fire department she's also a world champion powerlifter i've seen her lift four hundred and fifty pounds and brittany beat her next year you'll be in kentucky right the finals world yes will be in kentucky the first race of the year will be at the fire department instructors conference in april we'll start then and pick three or four races throughout the year just to make sure we qualify all of us into getting by all right you were on duty last night i could hear your voice up old trails i guess that was an interesting evening somebody ran through the garage is that what i saw yeah a little accident with a neighbor losing control of the vehicle and crossing into the neighbor's property and through their garage thankfully no injuries i was expecting a young person to be in the midst of that but not necessarily well thank you very much and congratulations next element of this meeting is audience comments do we have anyone in the audience wishing to address a non agenda item we're losing all the two people in the audience they're both writing diligently i presume that means there's no audience comments i got carried busy scribing some of these reviews the next part is unfinished business which we can dispense with because there is none new business anthony farm's planned lots phase three now we know where mr zilkha is here this is a simple plan that's not creating new lots all it is doing is rerecording store basements on lots three hundred and four and three hundred and five and rerecording the sanitary sewer through the year to new easements that are centered over the asbuilt lines they discovered when they were doing construction easements were off so this plan simply corrects that planning commission did review it at the december 8th meeting and recommended council approval subject to no conditions and we approved the antony farm's plan to launch phase two my calendar says here it's november 4th two thousand and sixteen second all those in favor please say aye aye anyone opposed to be nay motion carries seven zero next is a ddock change order something we're not familiar with this because ryan was in charge of this project if you haven't had a chance to see the new stage structure this is it's current condition there's some paving that still needs to be done when the spring comes i think everyone will agree it's a dramatic improvement over the prior stage the construction on the project is done there were a couple of minor changes that were required during construction the net effect is that there's a change order deducting two hundred and fifty six off of the construction costs i'll make a motion that we approve change order number one second i have a question is this the change order that pertains to the rafters or something like that there's actually a couple of things there's a rafters we had some additional supply lines for the water extended to the outside because we're going to put an outdoor drinking fountain there and there was an addition of a utility sink and the plumbing to accommodate that what was the reason that you gone from the metal rafters to the wood it had to do with the ability to get the materials and given where they are located the architect didn't feel that it made any substantial difference in the structure in terms of its integrity what about longevity i'm not sure that it's going to make a difference given where this is located in the structure well are they treated wood i would imagine that they be treated it's pressurized wood they should hold up better in the outdoors any other comments if you have a question a second all those in favor please say aye aye anyone opposed would be nay that motion carries seven zero next item a little more of consequence i guess it is an ordinance levy on the tax on real property on peters township in the year two thousand and seventeen what is being proposed is to set the millage at one thousand five hundred and twenty two mils when the information was sent out to council mr ball correctly identified that we had a typographical error and we've corrected that and that ordinance is in front of you the intent of this millage rate is to put the township in a position not to realize a windfall but simply to be in a position to collect the same amount of property tax that we would have received had not there been a reassessment now as we have discussed at workshops in many regards this is a guess because what we don't know is the aggregate assessment for peters township is a moving target and appeals are coming in every day to court and so what the ultimate aggregate assessed value of peter's township will be will be something that will change but this is our best attempt to create a situation where the township is left whole after the reassessment it looks like a lot of the appeals at least the ones that we've seen initially have been no change and i'm assuming that at least some of those are being appealed to some place yes again not so much concern about the residential appeals but we do not have a clear understanding yet of how many commercial appeals will be taken to the county and i think that again individuals have thirty days from the time they receive a decision to make those appeals and we're still in a period of time where people are filing appeals to court mr lowell normally we equate a dollar value to a mil i think last year it was three hundred and fourteen thousand or something like that for one mil so does this calculation equate to that or is there another number that we were described to well it's relatively easy now because we're at a hundred percent of valuation so for every thousand dollars that your house is assessed it's one hundred and fifty two that you applied to that and what people are going to discover is what we predicted was people who live in older homes who were here in one thousand nine hundred and eighty one will find that their local tax burden and school district tax burden will go up and those people living in newer homes may well find that their taxes are going down but there's not a direct correlation to a number i didn't do that calculation i mean like i said it would be easy to do all you're you're doing is one hundred and fifty two cents about fifty times whatever this is the point i was trying to make is it's variable in the past we could make a statement that one mil equals x amount of dollars for the township and that is not the same anymore it would be a different amount yes you'd look at this in tenths of mils at this point right that's what i was trying to say people were normally used to hearing a certain number equals one mil but that's not the way we can work it out anymore further discussion i'll make a motion that we approve ordinance eight hundred and ten the mil one's submitted second any further discussion all those in favor please say aye aye anyone opposed please say nay that motion carries seven zero it follows is the school district tax rate the same as it has been this though do they reset that rate in whatever they will reset their rate in the late may or early june and what i will tell council's what i've been telling everybody who calls up because we've been getting a number of calls about what's the school district millage going to be i don't think they're in a position to know that yet we certainly aren't in a position to speculate on it when they get closer to the time when they need to set their millage just like the county provided us the aggregate assessment they will provide them as well the one advantage that they will have over us is that by that point in time some of the appeals will have been settled and the other thing is even for those ones that have not been settled do at least have some idea of what the scope of the appeals are so i think they're going to be in a little bit better position than us just a minute the question that everybody seems to be asking at least that i keep hearing is so okay i understand this is our township actioning tax but what's my total tax bill and i keep referring them to mr belzec of renton school district to make that decision all right do we move on the next would be an ordinance adopting the peters township two thousand and seventeen operating budget which for those that have not seen the documents there's a copy of available here in the township and then there's a copy here there's a copy on the website there's a copy in the library so it's available readily to the public one thing i would like to say is that the budget itself is the reflection of work from a lot of different groups and individuals certainly this year was a little bit more interesting from the staff side because we have a lot of new people involved in the process i really want to thank brian and tom because they stepped up and helped a whole lot to get this to where it was at and of course council's role in this whole process and the amount of time that you spent is really remarkable and one of the things that i'm very thankful for is one of the things i got from council was very clear direction which made the process of putting this together a little bit easier than it might've been otherwise and so i thank you for that although it does bear some bad right which is our expenditures exceed our revenue our expenditures exceed our revenue in part that's because we're going to be spending some of the funds that we borrowed this year and we'll hopefully be buying an ariel fire truck we're also doing some work on the park lands and some of that will be paid for with some of the borrowed funds but yes there is a gap between the amount of money we're spending and the amount of money we're taking in it's going to create a challenge for us in terms of monitoring the budget as the year goes on one of the discussions i'm gonna be having with department heads on wednesday is to get them to begin to think in terms of not only their department but the community as a whole and find a saving so that in fact by the end of the year that gap is somewhat closed i do believe as i've told council particularly since we've taken on additional debt service this year that in two thousand and eighteen we should anticipate in peters township that there will be a property tax increase i'll return for that we've picked up about fifty acres of new property that we hope to develop to everybody's benefit all right can we have question well there were some discussions we had before about our earned income tax revenues being flat or actually decreasing they were going to look into that i mean did you figure anything out yes i think we have a pretty good idea of what's happening there isn't a solution to this though i believe that it's largely tied to the oil and gas industry downturn in that industry i think that has directly impacted our earned income tax receipts as well as in speaking with keystone we're seeing this throughout washington county in addition to that we have some key earned income taxpayers the top ten payers and in the revenues from those individuals alone there's a decrease of about ninety five thousand in earned income tax receipts i think until the oil and gas industry turns the corner i think it's going to be a challenge and that's why earned income tax receipts for next year are budgeted to be flat from this year but on a positive note we have a few businesses that have come into the township potentially we'll gain some revenue from the people they employ and so that's a positive can i ask now for a motion you could have asked the question i move that we approve ordinance number eight hundred and eleven approving the two thousand and seventeen peters township operating budget second opportunity for more discussion all those in favor please say aye aye anyone opposed would be nay that motion carries seven zero we have one more ordinance to adopt the twenty million one hundred and seventy two thousand and twenty one capital improvement program i didn't bring that binder you were provided that earlier well actually in the back section of the budget there's a complete listing in addition to that in the manager's report i provided you a summary of the two thousand and seventeen projects that are being proposed it's an ambitious program for next year again we're going to be meeting amongst ourselves on wednesday morning to talk about how it is we're going to get this program implemented for next year and would the list of capital projects be in the handouts discussion we need another person to move motion i move that we approval the ordinance eight hundred and twelve adopting the peters township capital improvement program i'll second no further discussion all those in favor please say aye aye all opposed will be nay the motion carries seven zero payroll bills i've reviewed the invoices and the values that are posted i was somewhat surprised with the number of them in the short period of only one month one week i suggest we have a motion approved so moved all those in favor please say aye aye anyone opposed will be nay that motion carries seven zero correspondence there was none reports there are several anyone over the discussion items relative to various reports that were included in the document the one item that i did make note of in the report and it's really not part of the report itself but we have been notified by a representative of maher's office that we will be receiving a two hundred and fifty thousand grant to do improvements of the shelter and the playground in petersburg park and i will tell you this on many occasions the dced simply uses the representative's office as a way to pass that message along but in this particular case that grant as much as ms harmel did a wonderful job in putting that application together the receipt of that grant has a lot to do with representative maher's intercession on our behalf he arranged for the secretary for the department to come and visit us he's lobbied with them directly he's done a yearman's job in terms of representing the community and as a result of that you have this grant maybe you can extend an invitation to him to come in and present the check to us in person and thank him for all of his help okay we can do that on to further miscellaneous i have a few things please in your docket there is a record of attendance for boards i'm giving you this now but you're going to see this again on january 2nd but highlighted other people who are up for reappointment and you can make a judgment as to whether or not their service is adequate to be reappointed one of the things that we did learn is that the zoning hearing board would like to have a second alternate so we need to fill that position we still have positions to fill in the environmental quality board and so my question to you is i have tentatively on schedule to do interviews on the 9th of january is that something that council wants to do it fills the whole month i believe well there's a question with regard to the other item there that that possible workshop but i mean do we want to do the interviews on the ninth so we can get the boards all up i think that's appropriate okay the other thing we are out still searching for candidates for the peters township sanitary authority i had cause to speak to mr silvestri he was asking about the township and i was explaining to him the deed with regard to the peters township sanitarian authority and he has suggested that if council thought there would be value to his service he would be willing to serve on that board so i just put that up for you have we had any other applicants for that position mr coby who is the chairman of the peters creek sanitary authority who actually lives in the service area for the peters township sanitary authority has offered to serve on both boards and we have one other individual who i'm not familiar with who has submitted an application i would want to have the sylvestri guy come in so we can interview him in seriousness i don't know that you can find a more qualified individual to put on board but right now it's struggling to hire a new manager of the department you've got a couple of board members one who will be leaving relatively soon but anyway in addition to it i think we've got to take action and take the motion to appoint michael i don't disagree that mr silvestri is in a unique position to contribute but i think it would be somewhat inappropriate to not talk to the other people that would be my only concern and also talk to him a little bit about his thoughts related to the position we don't normally discuss board appointments i quite frankly would think it would be an insult to ask him to come in for an interview we've been working with him for forty years do you make a motion i would make a motion to appoint mike silvestri and i would second further discussion apparently there is none well mr lewis and i exchanged an email about this i just would like to have a conversation with mr sylvestri before i vote in his favor but since you've made a motion and there's a second on the floor feel free yeah i just think in this instance we do have a sense of urgency i think you actually pointed that was in the initial aspect of it i think the consequences of not taking action here and the opportunity to get mike's participation they might hire a manager can we have a roll call please sure mr kosir aye mr ball aye mr arcuri aye mr berquist aye mr stiegler aye mrs merrell i'll abstain mr lewis aye motion carries six zero one thank you other miscellaneous i just wanted to point this out to you we were approached by the peters township hockey club the club is a high school club but at one point in time that wasn't true when i first started here the hockey club was actually a club of the township they wanted to come up with a throwback jersey and they needed our permission since our logo shows up on it and they wanted to share with you what that jersey looks like this is actually going to i believe be a fundraiser for the hockey club but the jerseys must work they've used them in one game and won that game so i just wanted you to be aware of that and thank you i'll use that as a jumping off point for an event that takes place on wednesday it is a charity event for funds for this cotton fashion family it's the peters township alumni hockey game against cannon mac alumni it will be at south point i believed in helping tom it was at seven hundred and thirty although i'm not certain of the time i gave them our time is six hundred and fifty pm okay what time six hundred and fifty i think it had to do with ice time so they crap up the game over by what nine hundred and seventeen right not a minute over donations are five and kids are free so i would encourage anyone that would like something to do on a non stormy night wednesday i think would be a great gesture to fill the place i just have one last thing and one of the things i put in front of you if you're interested we have a bar mitzvah hand a report as to the payoff at the rolling hills country club that's to be filed in court shortly after christmas i understand it's on the bottom it's the last thing i'd be interested i don't have one well look at mine and that last item we opened the bids today on the bauer hill school we've received one bid it's from tom robinson tom is the individual who renovated the matching school to this and so his bid is twenty five thousand five hundred which was pretty much cover our costs one of the things that we've asked him to do is to take a good look at the building and to be able to give council some idea of whether or not he thinks it can be renovated because we took bids two ways one renovating the building and maintaining the facade and two tearing the structure down and i thought it might be important to council to understand what his intention was before we award the bid he's been given access to the building and he's going to get back to us i know his initial thought was renovating the buildings when he wanted to do his concern is the structural stability of the building i'd like to take a few moments to reflect on what we've gone through this year i thank this council i certainly want to thank the other members of the council for their indulgence we've had a very busy year the staff has been great in helping us come up with do i want to call them replacements or new additions to the community's resources and certainly different challenge i think that hopefully the tagent doesn't ever have to face to this degree again and paul my hats off to you the whole members out here do we need to recite all the people that we've had to replace well we don't need to recite all of them but i can tell you this the one thing that i feel so comfortable with is and this is in part the wisdom of council's decisionmaking the people who you have hired to replace really longterm department heads has been outstanding mr herson mr grimes mr lennick they are just wonderful people and these were difficult positions to step into given that somebody's occupied them for so long and done so well but each of them has met that challenge and i can tell you working with ryan he picks it up quick give him a project it gets done so we've got a good team in place right now i just genuinely feel that way myself with a lot of anxiety going into the year absolutely i agree we can look forward to moving ahead with this anybody else have any comments we did not receive an lsa grant and the grant was for the streetscape project we added a second application with the state of pennsylvania and that was not funded either we're going to go back and look at the streetscape project and try to arrange it in a way that we can do it within the funds that we've had budgeted and i think we can accomplish that by pairing the project back some just driving around the township it just seems like we've got a lot of areas where i talked to mr zilkha about this today where we've got water running over the roads creating a lot of icy conditions i saw one today on southern church road right past southern church there was another one on east mcmurry road and i'm trying to remember the other one i've seen i've never noticed them in these particular areas before we had two inches of rain followed by a fifteen degree night it was an unusual circumstance all over the south hill there are going to be reoccurring problems throughout this whole road route nineteen coming down toward that's bowzer i guess i would say water running down this separate territory public works i was on the phone this morning early i'm surprised we don't have more accidents comes around that turn and it's right there but you're absolutely correctly there you saw more of that this morning than you would normally see and i know the guys although they spent a lot of hours doing snow and ice removal over the weekend they were out first thing this morning hitting those icy spots okay thank you next agenda items which would be on the purpose of the press holiday on january 2nd we're all coming in that day and at that meeting we'll be recognizing two individuals one is sergeant collins will be here to be presented his medal for heroism and then in addition to that mr rogers is going to be here joseph rogers he's one hundred and two years old he'll be celebrating his one hundred and two birthday and we're going to be presenting him the key to peters township very good anything else that's it the meeting's adjourned and with that thank you very much