Supervisors agree to close portion of road
LOWER TYRONE TWP. – Young adults and teens who party hardy on Cunningham Bridge Road/Eannotti Road will have to find a new place to hang out thanks to the township supervisors. Supervisor’s Tuesday agreed to have solicitor Richard Husband write an ordinance that will allow them to close 2,000 feet of the road. Supervisor Luke Knapp, in making the motion to have the road closed, said a petition was presented to supervisors with 21 signatures from residents of Cunningham Bridge Road asking that the road be closed.
“This has been an ongoing problem for people living in that area of the township,” said Knapp. “I took a ride out there last week and the road has eroded to the point that someone’s going to end up in Jacob’s Creek.”
Knapp said what used to be a 12-foot wide dirt road is now down to 9-foot wide road. He also said that beaver have built a dam near the road which has caused a lot of the erosion.
Signs will be placed on Cunningham Bridge Road and on Eannotti Road informing motorists that the road is a dead end with no outlet. Knapp said supervisor’s chairman Ernie Walters will talk to Upper Tyrone Township supervisor chairman Jack Fullem in order to get the signs placed on Eannotti Road.
Although Cunningham Bridge Road is in Lower Tyrone Township, Eannotti Road is in Upper Tyrone Township. Knapp said the supervisors have a good relationship with the Upper Tyrone Township supervisors and doesn’t foresee any problems.
In other unrelated matters, the supervisors were served with a declaratory judgment by a constable prior to their regular 6 p.m. meeting. Husband said Robert B. Ferguson Jr. and the Brownfield Community Center and Public Library Inc. filed the court documents against the supervisors.
In the documents, Ferguson claims that the supervisors unfairly denied him permission to operate a memorial chapel in the Brownfield Community Center even after the Community Center board of directors gave him permission to do so.
“The board has a signed lease agreement with the supervisors that they can sublease rooms in the Community Center if they agree to do so,” said Ferguson. “They (the board and the supervisors) have sublet a portion of the Community Center before for professional reasons and what I’m proposing is a professional service recognized by professional funeral director’s practice.”
Ferguson said the supervisor’s denied his request for consent without providing a reasonable basis for the denial. Ferguson also said that’s why his Scottdale attorney, James Lederach, filed the declaratory judgment with the Fayette County Court.
“Under the Community Center’s lease with the supervisors, I have the right to take possession of a room in the center right now,” he said. “However, I’m not interested in making valuable improvements without a declaratory Judgment that the township unreasonably withheld its consent to the sublease.”
Husband said he would file a response to the documents with the court.