Today is deadline for damage estimates
BROWNSVILLE – Today is the last day for Brownsville residents to submit damages estimates from last week’s flooding to the borough to be included in the request for assistance. A state of emergency declared by Mayor Norma Ryan after last Thursday’s flooding expires today. Ryan told the borough council Tuesday that she didn’t see a need to continue the declaration at this time. Ryan said the damage to public and private property is currently estimate at more than $500,000. The Salvation Army will be at the Brownsville Soup Kitchen through Friday starting at 10 a.m. to offer assistance to area residents affected by the flooding.
A survey is being distributed door-to-door in Brownsville Borough and Brownsville Township in preparation for the completion of a comprehensive regional plan for the two communities.
“We tried to fine-tune it to the needs of Brownsville and Brownsville Township. It will be handed out to all residents. We want to know what they want to see happen in the next 10 years,” Ryan said.
Each household will receive one survey, which can be completed anonymously, and may contain a variety of opinions on any of the issues, Ryan said.
“It’s important to get it back in. One our issues is, we’d like to clean up the community. We’d like to know what the people want,” said Jack Lawver, council president.
Ryan said more volunteers are still needed to distribute the surveys. There will be 976 surveys distributed in the borough and more than 200 in the township. All surveys must be returned to the borough by May 31.
In other matters, a community-wide cleanup day has been set for May 28th. The borough’s garbage hauler, CBF, will accept large items on that date, as long as residents are current on their CBF bill and have marked the items to be picked up with a special sticker. The stickers are available at the borough building for $1 each. Ryan said the sticker system was implemented to prevent people from outside the area from bringing old furniture to Brownsville to be disposed of.
Council also voted not to accept a proposed agreement from Charter Communications.
Councilman Shawn Bush said he met recently with Charter and the company was unwilling to make any of the concessions being sought by the borough, including provisions for a senior citizens’ discount and for the agreement to be retroactive to the expiration of the last agreement.
Council voted to accept the current civil service commission rules and regulations for the hiring of police officers.
The borough is currently seeking a full-time officer and several part-time officers. Capt. Tom Wardman is retiring at the end of the month.
Council also approved an agreement with the Fayette County Housing Authority to provide 15 to 20 hours of additional patrols at South Hills Terrace and Snowden Terrace each week.
An ordinance setting various fees for construction, demolition, additions, and inspections was also adopted by council in conjunction with the building code already in place.