r these comments are limited to five minutes i will hold it to five minutes i would ask please that you know once somebody has said something let's not have twenty five people say the same thing we get the picture pretty quick so you know it's right now if you have a spokesman for two i would suggest that you say your spokesman not make comments but if you want to make a go thank you my name is susan hanna well i live it to a five grand if you drive i've been a resident of the township for thirty eight years but thirty years ago i saw an article in the advertiser about meals on wheels drivers being needed and i joined up we had three routes and thirty clients i soon moved up to driver coordinator and director twenty five years ago i am a volunteer i am at the kitchen every day i drive all the routes but one i'm here with all my friends the volunteers and clients of meals on wheels to ask you to reconsider your decision to oust meals on wheels from our current space i read the stories in newspapers around thanksgiving telling how people are so excited to be getting together at churches and places to make dinner for others and how they can't wait till next year to do it well we get together to do that every single day morning of the year last year we made forty five thousand eight hundred seventy meals we sent them out to senior citizens in a wide circle around our kitchen many in peter's and many outside to people who need the food as much as those in peter's who are maybe more we have volunteers who make the meals who drive our twelve routes out to our two hundred we have about two hundred meals every day who pick up food from generous local businesses especially high schoolers and our two farms tracks and simmons we cook terrific food things to where we start here with juli mostly from scratch with lots of fresh fruits and vegetables and with no salt added we customize our food for special diets we get rave reviews from our clients when we went to rented the old social hall it had not been used by firemen for many years we told them then we were interested in the long term and we built out a fabulous kitchen thanks to an incredible donation of half a million dollars from central park none of you on council has accepted our invitation to come and see us in action making meals at that time fifty to sixty volunteers are in the space in a note and with food makers and drivers i believe only one of you has actually even walked into the building that would be mr berquist you came for  so when someone told me that one of you said in a meeting after all it's just a kitchen that made my blood boil it is a full scale commercial kitchen with beautiful colors every amenity possible why does peters need a meals  because it is not a very senior friendly community you have to drive on route one thousand to get to join you go if you have c o p d or bad here for emphysema you'll find that very challenging running through that big store if you've lost your spouse or have a spouse with alzheimer's you don't have the energy to make a complicated meal meals on wheels is a great option we bring tasty food for a modest fee we check on you get the mail change a lightbulb and come back later to fix the screen door sometimes we drive you to the hospital or the hairdresser because you kids live across the country when you're in the hospital we come and visit not every community can afford a beautiful well staffed meals that's why we spread out as far as our drivers are willing to go we are not asking the council to give us money or to sponsor us we are a five a one c three nonprofit organization properly registered and inspected we have been paying you forty eight thousand dollars a year for eight years more than one dollar for every four dollar meal we send out to our clients i think that rent is ridiculous and is way more than we cost you but now we are simply asking you to be given the chance to stay in place i understand that the fire department needs more storage but does it really need five thousand square feet of prime space to store its things i know the chief the deputy want new offices but does it make sense to have an office two flights up and all the way across a large building timers have told me that we have no chance of changing your mind because council does whatever the fire department wants i am asking you to reconsider your decision to kick us out of the space surely a storage at the same level with the fire  a an office and a meeting space beside it or up stairs would be a better answer fire departments are absolutely critical for the fire prevention and safety education and for the terrible crises involving fires meal service for seniors is also important on a daily basis for the health and quality of life for our older adults and can afford both you and members of the community to visit our facility next saturday december twel our open house from nine to twelve so that you can finally see for yourselves what we are talking about and make a judgment informed by that vision we will provide the cookies thank you very much know this because both of us have volunteered for this amazing program and have seen the first hand meals on wheels has been fortunate to have had over six hundred volunteers in eight years it has been at the current location has provided meals and other services to citizens in the each and every year this is a massive undertaking and could not be done were it not for the dedicated volunteer corps from peter's township and surrounding communities peters township deals on wheels provides meals five days a week for every week of the year for over two hundred individuals who are otherwise unable to fend for themselves while it is true that some of these needy folks are not peters township residents i s also true that peters township does not many ways subsidize this operation in fact the organization has been charged as has been mentioned forty eight thousand dollars annually for the space no one was willing to rent when the leas the organization spent an enormous amount renovating the space and installing a thoroughly modern commercial kitchen to serve the needs of its large of his clients thanks to a generous donor who is no longer to position to front such large expenses the township has never offered to assist in any way and you township commissioners have even the client to visit the facility to see the improvements and serve the work being done there that's a shame the stage intention of township council to refuse to renew this lease on a meals on wheels space will work an enormous hardship on the hundreds of needy in vigils now being served by this amazing organization there is apparently a cavalier idea on the part of the board that this will be no big deal for this program to vacate the existing space find a new location and relocate his full blown commercial kitchen to a new space nothing could be further from the truth in all likelihood the terminations of this lease will result in the shut down of this vital program and the elimination of its daily mill provision to the hundreds of need for individuals now being served peters township is not an impoverished community and can easily afford to make whatever modifications are needed to accommodate the requirements of the fire department without destroying one of the most effective meals on wheels programs in the entire region a program whose unbelievably dedicated director susan walt has been working to build and sustain without salary or other compensation for over twenty five years if this is the course this township elects to pursue it will make me ashamed to say that i am a resident of this community and it will be a disservice to all of those current and future citizens who will be denied this essential assistance peters township can and should do better and must expect better from its elected officials i am confident that if you were willing to come and observe the wonderful work being done at meals on wheels and see the impact it has had on the lives of so many of our neediest residents you would also agree unfortunately not one of us ever accepted the office presented by meals on wheels to do so it is shameful but you would turn your back on such an essential operation in your own backyard when the chinese very favorably a li seven years ago i joined museum wheels for peter's township where i rode the computer program to figure out the mail deliveries and do the budgeting and keep track of the volunteers schedules and others things like that and over the years then i've been a daily volunteer for me and i have done all the jobs there working in the kitchen washing the dishes sweeping the floor packing the food putting out the soup making the salads and sandwiches and packing the meals and dilute doing the deliveries too and after i had been there for a while i joined the board of me as i was and so i know what this is about about four years ago i married spoke first tonight and moved to peter's township we decided to live here rather than on my farm in nottingham or one of the other nearby communities in part because of the attractiveness of the township i like the way the roads are plowed and the winner if you've been to nottingham you know what i mean i like the parks the library the access to the trail the schools the nearby businesses the dare program that's part of the police department from the neighbors on our street and since i started volunteering i have driven almost all the routes and i've met clients and i can see how important it is to them and to their children and other relatives ours are ageing communities our seniors want to stay in their homes but many can't drive any longer to prepare meals and none of us are getting any younger males are almost makes a part helps to make a possible for them to live in their homes and provides peace of mind for their relatives who  during the day and it and this is really important it also gives opportunities for our residents to volunteer performing a useful service and making friends or volunteers or must be seniors but they include people of all ages including girl scouts and grade school children who make favors to pass out to the to the order of clients and and the seniors should get some time doing a community service and to put on their resume when they're going off to college and and in the last two years as john said over six hundred different adults not counting the children in school have volunteered to help us do this but maybe more important than getting a hot meal visit visit of a friendly volunteer who picks up the newspaper in the mail and brings a book a a flowers a card and a special treat on their birthday and checks on a quiet we've had and it goes beyond that because we've gone back afterwards to fix somebody's stairs in there and their sidewalk or to fix a screen door or drive them to and to a doctor's appointment and on occasion we arrive at somebody's sass and we find out that they've fallen and we've music on wheels as part of what makes this township attractive to people and part of that attractiveness is serving our neighboring communities to we don't ask people to prove their address when they want to drive on our roads or visit our library or walk in the park and we don't ask them to be part of township residents in order to receive the services that we provide i think the space above the township is not even the township fire station is not even suitable for storage first of all there's nowhere to drive a truck up to it and if you would see the kitchen you would realize that it's a fabulous place for a kitchen and the township afford to put up a garage to put storage hi my name is kathy hay i live at ninety one dr i grew up in this community and graduated in class of ninety one my husband graduated in eighty nine we chose to look to move back to peter because we felt it was a good community decisions like this before you have left us disenchanted and our children have even said that they will not move back to peter's township because they they're ashamed of some of the decisions that have been made i grew up doing meals on wheels my mother has done it for over twenty years i've done it the last eight years i've taken my children we've gone to homes that people can't even get up out of their chairs they don't answer the doors because they can't they expect us they wait for us right there they can't wait to see us but you've heard all that you've heard about our meals you heard that we do more than feed them but there's something else this is a township that likes to talk about character we teach our children that character counts we give awards we patter self on the back well it's time for peers to show that we mean it when we do it it's not just something that we like to use as a p r meals on wheels matters and there are alternatives i ask that you look at the alternatives for the storage and the offices don't just blindly tell these people and it's not just the two hundred we deliver every day if you take over the eight years of the twenty years it's thousand people come on our routes for two or three weeks after surgery or they stay on it for ten years  ten fifteen years we watch the papers for obituaries but we also have people that can barely answer the door and after we feed them for a while you can see the improvement in their health and they go off but i want my children to be proud of the  community proud of what they're taught in school that it matters and in the papers and in all of our organizations in this township peters is not community service is not something that stops at a border and i really think it's important that we assess this because this is a serious matter this isn't just a matter of storage this is a matter of people's lives and our children's lives because we set the example i just ask that you evaluate the decision again thank you meeting that you should be going to other communities that you're serving since we someone here said to one of the speaker said that we we're not with the kind of system anyway and that's that's just not that's not true we did not increase  per the lease agreement that you originally signed with the volunteer fire department we waived that that that that increase and you can say the rent in dollar amounts is his  expense of on what you have spent over the last several years on a square footage basis still extremely reasonable and we have a fire do share responsibility everyone on this board not only two great organizations such as mil meals on wheels but to the twenty five thousand or so other residents peter stacia and you know the reason that we haven't had tax increases in this township and the reasons that we have all the amenities that that someone mentioned here this evening want to take the number of trips that you're doing now i think from two hundred and so up to close to four hundred so that increase in in traffic was also somewhat concerning to us at this the back from a safety standpoint fire trucks equipment coming in and out was also a concern of ours so those are some of the issues that that that that we wanted to discuss and we really only had us he said well no it's not a municipal function and i wouldn't expect finleyville to help us or tenants we have to find ways to fund ourselves and we will do that but it's not something that you would help with if that the township has done nothing to support meals on wheels that just isn't the case and whether it's whether it's repairs for that building we've recently undertaken to do those those are all services that that program and the other thing that you and i have discussed is that that rent that is be charged where mr burke where that may seem like a large number the fact of the matter is it's below commercial rate that that  could be rented for so that that would be something where you and you and i in you and i have talked about we have and the other thing that i think we have discussed is that the play is the fire department for that area is not simply store this isn't a case of placing meals on wheels with storage it's the increased need for space from volunteers of the fire department to gather t people like to make one change in the agenda at this point we have a line item further down which is a miscellaneous item which is the discretion of the construction appeals board decision and he hadn't broken to see we have the state of dropping the uniform construction and then when the uniform construction code went into a fact the state allowed unison audi's to retain certain provisions  that were more stringent that existed prior to the c c cut and so that's why that provision is still part of our our our building code there is a procedure that the state has to allow problem because you do have the number a units in the township that are closer together but that are single family depressed and what you've got units there that are you know much less than fifty feet from each other and there's a couple they said that they would see granting the option of people to turn off the sprinkler systems in the areas where it's not required by the u c c and suggested to council that we might want to reconsider what we come down to is this it's not just the fact that it's fifteen feet away the basic problem is that it says six foot separation between any adjacent unit built within a car the mini project where common ownership of land exists that's the only thing that holds us to the law that's according to mr muzzy and according to mr mr smith when he's here and everyone else that's your thing we're asking to change we're not asking to change a six foot any rules or laws or any like it is just the common ground requirement second thing is what we've always come down to is and you folks have said well you didn't want to do this you didn't want to do that all the people neighborhood i don't want to belabor the point to look almost everyone's got new garage doors everyone's out of insulation and true we did have poor construction there may be and this is something we receive from the fire department t construction people's board meeting if the township who are the fire department had presented this to the builders or do you inspectors all of this good information we wouldn't have the problems we have right now because someone would have known how to inspect our houses and also how to build them so that's what the problem is ok this is fine but we see all this insulation how it's supposed to be how it's supposed to be ducted how it's supposed to requirements that are in this i mean it's nice it's good it's great to look at i wish you people get a chance to see it i know it's ok if someone it had just in the very beginning maybe we wouldn't be having these problems right now we have them chief said that when he built his house he said i made the decision to put a sprinkler system in his house in my house and i sleep good at night ok i didn't have that option nobody told me i was going to sprinkler system before i moved in didn't care one way or the other to all the problems of vo i know one thing and there's only a few people here tonight because they're quite they've got tired of coming to all the meetings and they get in the same as or they don't sleep as well at night i know the ch is a problem of the township is not responsible for totally but they are partially responsible for so all raskin for is the houses that are fifty feet apart be allowed to turn our systems off of the folks i want to i can tell you right now most you have to call preferred firefighters or a system like that and have them come to the house tell you how they can shut raj off paid them and then shut it off would be some plumber walking around or someone else doing it but the units where so that really doesn't make sense and that is what holds us to the war the ideas that are closer than fifteen feet i'm sorry for them that's just the way it's going to be we already told them they understand  you would have to go through the process of applying to leyburn industry to modify it to your options or either to eliminate the current provision or modify you can't you can't modify it without puts the township in the clear in so far is would that formal like a blanket hey you can't because we apply to the state and the state said ok versus just council doing the same kind of thing but i think you're correct that it does come down to some degree to the expectations of property purchasers who may have examined the ordinance said i want to purchase here because i'm getting protection from either side if that protection goes away  it retroactively where it's already and almost like a grandfather defect where you know you can keep it if you still have in the future you don't have to do it the reverse of that i do think it sets up at least a question on expectations for whatever developments may be out there in terms of what could be modified the future for people who move in for a whole variety of reasons some people may not have known others may have said yes this is what particularly attracted to to me you know how much is labor and industry come i don't know if they say no it obviously addresses the issue but if they say yes if something happens there and likely that the buck will stop with them at least in terms of complaints or you know individuals presenting before you know council they're more likely than labor and industry in harrisburg yeah but they were that they would one i would have to say almost most of the probably without exception conditions that are caused failures have been due to a lot of proper installation of one i don't know of other communities whether they've had any experience successful or not with i was going to fire stack correctly the issues is the common ground so i just need to clarify in my mind why now did you realize that they were five feet i mean that way and didn't change the lots didn't change nothing is changed from the first time when you said now we'll keep it fifty farms back in two thousand and ten i believe we started off it six hundred fifty thousand dollars homes were twenty to thirty five foot deep we sold seven lots in the last eight months and each home has been four thousand plus square feet so i was sixteen thank you very much and the the the dynamic has changed the market has changed a little bit so when we first started if you look at lots i believe it's one zero four through one i forget what it is they had fifty foot building lines as well in phase one and they had very small backyards and we sold them to everybody who said i don't want to backyard they go very much wider because of the way we structure a lot so we go a little bit deeper and now we're getting closer to the neighbors where the hillside and all that stuff so the market has changed is there no option to combine the dots to make them wider change th keep galland back to is that if we're going to approve a variance from the very beginning then something needs to be communicated to the people who are building that houses not to come back and ask for a french variance again that to me makes it convoluted when you do it when we've approved something they better understand in my mind that you don't get to come anymore into the thirty five square foot i understand what you're saying about the size of the homes i've driven through there i've seen it i appreciate that people want the bigger houses but they keep getting closer to the street so the whole idea of the static that you originally tried to create is being diminished by those things o twenty inclusive are subject to the recommendations placed upon the a lot by the plague commission which i believe number for the base bid to suite construction was seventy four thousand six hundred and that basically is it's just it's a little bit larger a shelter than we currently have by about ten twelve feet in l area here this shelter makes it so somewhat easier to do because it's near where we already have our existing plumbing to the restroom go to where there's a septic system so it's probably the only one really that makes it feasible at least that they're doing when they pilled in shelters they are adding these kitchen facilities and concern for people when they use them for picnics and stuff so they can be able to do more with food especially if it's large groups and so it's i know  the bigger the better that is that is true when it's a topic for another conversation it is if i could point to well and i would imagine we would rent this for more money if we are going to have a kitchen there i mean we haven't talked about what the fee would be certainly that would be probably something we would want to do is you know if they if they want to use the kitchen we would add in it and there's no cost to i guess my point on the trying to do that i think that's what the metal roof accomplishes i just think for five thousand dollars it just seems like fits into our long term plan and it's more attractive it's not that much money the kitchen if you change that and you modify and call it the demolition for public works and we need on the board term update just to i finally we were able to get in touch with mr sound a lot from the cable boards that he is interested in serving here and he's on his first term and i think it's only been a partial term and whether or not we think most of that's going to be use or we're going to end up with more chunk at the end just for that retirements thing we referenced all i'd put money in the fines that we would have an