The Bellwood Borough Council members held their monthly meeting last evening at the municipal building to address issues within the borough.
\nCouncil adopted ordinance number 456 authorizing the indebtedness and the issuance of the note for the fire company loan.
\nThe Excelsior Number One Volunteer Fire Company approached the Bellwood Borough and requested the borough\u2019s assistance in backing the fire company on a $150,000 loan, at two percent interest, to help refinance the fire company\u2019s payoff.
\nThe borough decided it would be a CO-borrower, and the local government (the borough), will pledge its own revenues in the event that the fire company defaults. The fire company is going to have a primary obligation to pay off the loan.
\nThe Bellwood Borough had to enact an ordinance on this because they\u2019re subject to the provisions of something called \u2018The Local Government Unit Dead Act.\u2019
\nSolicitor Lee Oswalt explained, \u201cWhat that means is that the Legislature doesn\u2019t want municipalities borrowing more money than they\u2019re capable of repaying, so they have this complicated formula to determine how much a borough can borrow.\u201d
\n\u201cAnd so, there\u2019s certain requirements of that Act that have to be met before a municipality borrows any money that they complied with,\u201d said Oswalt.
\nAs of now, the borough is basically at its end with the process, besides having to send in the paperwork. The state agencies are going to loan the money at two percent to the borough and the fire company.
\nDuring the public comment session held at the beginning of Monday evening\u2019s council meeting, the \u2018Burning Ordinance number 384, enacted in 1990, was addressed by a concerned borough citizen, Diane Valade.
\nValade questioned council members on how the public is educated about ordinances put in place, such as the Burning Ordinance.
\nSolicitor Oswalt answered, \u201cThere\u2019s advertisement in the paper in accordance of the provisions of the borough code, which requires publication at least one week before and not more than 30 days before, either having the text of the entire ordinance itself or a summary of the ordinance with notation in the advertisement.\u201d
\nHe continued, \u201cIf you\u2019re only publishing a summary, a full text of the ordinance is available with the borough secretary for review by the public.\u201d
\nValade\u2019s concern was the constant illegal burning taking place around East 5th Street. She said that she lives on a street where there are incredible and numerous violators of the ordinance.
\n\u201cI\u2019ve shut my windows and my doors, and shut my ears and eyes to it, and I\u2019m basically fed up with doing that,\u201d said Valade.
\nValade stated she has called police and only get into spats with officers about fighting with the people who are burning. She said that the police question her constant calling and practically ignore her efforts to try and stop the violators of the Burning Ordinance.
\n\u201cFirst of all I resent that, because I\u2019m not the one violating the law or the one violating the ordinance,\u201d said Valade. She said that she would like very much to calm the waters up around East 5th Street because it\u2019s a rough neighborhood to live it.
\nValade explained, \u201cI\u2019m tired of this because it is my right to live and have police protection and live within the borough in peace. I shouldn\u2019t have to be violated like this just about every other day. I don\u2019t have the time to police in front of my windows.\u201d
\nValade said that her problem is that she sends her children to the backyard to play and they come in choking and can\u2019t breathe because of the substances that are being burnt in that neighborhood.
\nCouncil President, Wayne Snare, stated, \u201cThe Mayor will be looking into that and I think once she (Valade) talks to the Mayor she\u2019ll realize it really involves more the police department.\u201d
\n\u201cTo the police officers\u2019 defense, they have told me a different story,\u201d said Snare.
\nValade responded, \u201cI really just want peace up there. I shouldn\u2019t have to engage in a verbal spat with a police officer to carry out this ordinance – it\u2019s their job. I\u2019m abiding by the law and I\u2019m calling as they asked me to, and then I\u2019m getting verbal abuse for it when I shouldn\u2019t have to.\u201d
\nOn the lighter side of council issues, council members ratified the decision of council to Bellwood-Antis Park and Recreation Authority to administer the funds for the playground equipment grant from DCNR.
\nThere will also be a leaf pick up in the borough. Borough employees will pick up leaves at the curbside on Fridays from October 25 through November 22. Council asks residents to please gather your leaves in \u2018Recyclable Paper Bags only.\u2019
\nTrick or Treat will be scheduled for Thursday, October 31 from 6 p.m. until 8 p.m.
\nThe Halloween Parade will form at Houser\u2019s Grocery on North 4th Street on Tuesday, October 29 at 6 p.m. and get underway at 6:30 p.m.<\/p>\n","protected":false},"excerpt":{"rendered":"
The Bellwood Borough Council members held their monthly meeting last evening at the municipal building to address issues within the borough. Council adopted ordinance number 456 authorizing the indebtedness and the issuance of the note for the fire company loan. The Excelsior Number One Volunteer Fire Company approached the Bellwood Borough and requested the borough\u2019s […]<\/p>\n","protected":false},"author":2,"featured_media":0,"comment_status":"open","ping_status":"open","sticky":false,"template":"","format":"standard","meta":{"footnotes":""},"categories":[3],"tags":[],"class_list":["post-48063","post","type-post","status-publish","format-standard","hentry","category-local-news-in-the-tyrone-pennsylvania-area"],"_links":{"self":[{"href":"https:\/\/tyronepa.com\/index.php?rest_route=\/wp\/v2\/posts\/48063","targetHints":{"allow":["GET"]}}],"collection":[{"href":"https:\/\/tyronepa.com\/index.php?rest_route=\/wp\/v2\/posts"}],"about":[{"href":"https:\/\/tyronepa.com\/index.php?rest_route=\/wp\/v2\/types\/post"}],"author":[{"embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/tyronepa.com\/index.php?rest_route=\/wp\/v2\/users\/2"}],"replies":[{"embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/tyronepa.com\/index.php?rest_route=%2Fwp%2Fv2%2Fcomments&post=48063"}],"version-history":[{"count":0,"href":"https:\/\/tyronepa.com\/index.php?rest_route=\/wp\/v2\/posts\/48063\/revisions"}],"wp:attachment":[{"href":"https:\/\/tyronepa.com\/index.php?rest_route=%2Fwp%2Fv2%2Fmedia&parent=48063"}],"wp:term":[{"taxonomy":"category","embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/tyronepa.com\/index.php?rest_route=%2Fwp%2Fv2%2Fcategories&post=48063"},{"taxonomy":"post_tag","embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/tyronepa.com\/index.php?rest_route=%2Fwp%2Fv2%2Ftags&post=48063"}],"curies":[{"name":"wp","href":"https:\/\/api.w.org\/{rel}","templated":true}]}}