State briefs
Railroad pressured HOLLIDAYSBURG, Pa. (AP) – The Blair County Commissioners put the former Norfolk Southern car shops property back on the tax rolls, hoping that will spur the railroad to find a buyer for it.
Rudy Husband, spokesman for the railroad, said the railroad was already doing everything it could to sell the property. He said Tuesday’s action was a waste of time because the railroad is a utility and therefore exempt from the real estate tax. But county officials said that exemption doesn’t apply since the property stopped being used by the railroad, which once employed 320 people there.
The work force dwindled to about 180 by the time Norfolk Southern finally closed the freight car repair center in July.
If taxes are collected, the school district will get about $57,000 a year from the property, with the county and Hollidaysburg borough each getting about $18,000.
Windfall reaped
GREENSBURG, Pa. (AP) – A Westmoreland County township and school district reaped a combined $1 million windfall from real estate transfer taxes paid by the company that purchased the Westmoreland Mall – believed to be the most lucrative real estate transaction in county history.
Hempfield Township and the Hempfield Area School District will each receive $530,000 in real estate transfer taxes that were paid Tuesday by CBL & Associates Properties Inc.
The Chattanooga, Tenn.-based company paid $111 million for the 25-year-old mall on Route 30, about 35 miles east of Pittsburgh. A company representative paid the transfer tax Tuesday, according to county Recorder of Deeds Tom Murphy.
Murphy said he collected $569,000 in transfer taxes for all other Hempfield Township real estate transactions combined in 2002.
Grant received
RIDGWAY, Pa. (AP) – Dickinson Mental Health Center Inc. has received a $585,000 federal grant to establish a group home just outside of Bradford for homeless men suffering from mental illness.
The grant is the largest single-project grant in the state under the federal Housing and Urban Development-McKinney Grant program.
The money will be used to buy and renovate a 5,500-square-foot home that Dickinson will staff around the clock as a home for eight men.
The mental health company developed the plan for the house with the Cameron-Elk-McKean Mental Health
ental Retardation Program, a collaborative department representing those three counties.
The residents are expected to be men aged 18 to 23 who are too old to be cared for by the counties’ child welfare system, yet have mental illnesses that require assisted living care.
Suspect convicted
CARLISLE, Pa. (AP) – A former Shippensburg water superintendent who was convicted of bribery and conspiracy after a jury concluded he conspired with a sawmill owner to steal timber from a reservoir has been sentenced to six to 23 months in county prison.
Richard C. Kelley Sr., 68, of Franklin County, was also ordered Tuesday to pay more than $300,000 in restitution and fines.
Prosecutors said a sawmill owner told state police he paid Kelley $43,426 in bribes to illicitly cut timber in the Gunter Valley Reservoir in the early 1990s. Judge Edgar B. Bayley said state law required him to fine Kelley three times the amount of that bribe.
Defense lawyer David Keller pleaded for leniency, saying his client has already been punished because the convictions will force him to give up his pension. He asked the judge to give Kelley probation.
Utility rates increase
HARRISBURG, Pa. (AP) – The city’s 2003 budget does not have a higher property tax increase, but does call for higher water and sewer rates that would cost the typical family about $65 more a year.
One challenge for 2004 is the city’s garbage incinerator, which burns most of the city’s trash. Tougher air quality regulations will mean the incinerator has to shut down in June. The city can either keep it closed or spend up to $90 million to make it comply with the new regulations.
The $55.15 million general fund budget approved 6-1 on Tuesday assumes the council will approve the incinerator project and a bond issue to pay for it. But council members said the budget vote shouldn’t bee seen as approval of the incinerator project.
Taxes increased
YORK, Pa. (AP) – York County Commissioners have adopted a budget that calls for a 33 percent increase in property taxes, causing a great deal of anger from some citizens.
“You people don’t care about the taxpayers,” retired East Hopewell Township resident Eunice Radecke told the commissioners at Tuesday’s meeting. “I’m fed up with you. I hope you don’t run next year.”
The county had expected to get about $17 million in 2003 for housing about 700 people detained by the U.S. Immigration and Naturalization Service, but the federal contract expires in February and the INS wants to pay less money. President Commissioner Chris Reilly said the tax increase could be prevented if the county reaches an agreement with the INS.
Court OKs budget
DUNMORE, Pa. (AP) – For the second year in a row, borough officials have had to get a court order to approve their budget because the property tax it calls for exceeds the limit set by the state.
The state’s limit is 30 mills; Dunmore needed to stay at 35 mills to cover a deficit of nearly $400,000 in its $7.3 million budget for 2003. A mill is a tax of $1 on every $1,000 of assessed property value.
Borough officials promised to work to come up with a way to stay within the 30-mill limit for the 2004 budget.
“We don’t want to be back in court a third time,” Borough Council President Leonard Verrastro said Tuesday.
Contract approved
SCRANTON, Pa. (AP) – The union representing city clerical workers has voted 34-24 to approve a four-year contract.
The union representing public works employees had previously approved a contract; both contracts must still be approved by the City Council.
Mayor Chris Doherty now needs to reach agreements with the unions representing police and firefighters. Those unions, which are barred by state law from striking, can force the city to go to binding arbitration if the two sides do not reach an accord on their own.
Assessment appealed
LEHIGHTON, Pa. (AP) – Four-time Super Bowl champion Matt Millen is appealing a property tax assessment on his Carbon County car dealership, saying the business he purchased last year for nearly $1.2 million is worth no more than $550,000.
A judge will hear Millen’s case against the county Board of Assessment and Revision of Taxes. The hearing has not been scheduled.
In his appeal, Millen’s lawyer Anthony Roberti stated that the dealership is over-assessed compared with other commercial properties in the county.
Millen, a former Whitehall High School and Penn State University star and current president of the Detroit Lions, owns several dealerships and bought the Lehighton Ford dealership in March.
The case is among several significant tax assessment appeals pending in county court, including Wal-Mart and Split Rock Resort.