Dec 9, 2006 By Christine Haines 3 min read

BROWNSVILLE – Brownsville Borough weathered its first winter road emergency since Monday night’s lay-off of the road crew and other borough workers. Council President Jack Lawver said he and other borough officials monitored the weather situation throughout the day Thursday, and around 4 p.m. when a snow squall moved through the area, the road crew was called out on an emergency basis.

“They came out within 15-20 minutes of the snow squall we had. They got held up in traffic. By 8 p.m., they had all the major roads cleared,” Lawver said.

The crew was called out for another three hours of work Friday morning, to make sure roads were free of snow and ice for school buses and people heading to work.

There are still no miracles on the horizon that would allow the borough to call its employees back to work on a permanent basis. The borough needs about $50,000 to pay off its tax anticipation loan with National City Bank before it can borrow more money against the 2007 taxes to keep municipal services going. Some residents have asked whether donations can be accepted to help pay off the loan, so Lawver checked into it with the Pennsylvania State Association of Boroughs.

“What the boroughs association said was it would have to go through the borough books to pay off the tax anticipation loan,” Lawver said.

Lawver said individuals wanting to help pay off the loan could earmark donations to the borough for that purpose.

“We’ve had people over the years say they wanted to do specific projects. We have to follow procedures. When you have a tax anticipation loan, they have to show how you paid it off. You’re not allowed to borrow from another lending institution,” Lawver said.

Lawver said he isn’t soliciting donations for the borough, though when people ask him how they can help, he suggests that they talk to anyone they know who still owes taxes, trying to get them paid by the end of the year.

“There are people who can’t afford to pay their taxes, I understand that,” Lawver said.

According to the Fayette County Tax Claim office, anyone can pay anyone else’s tax bill. Current year taxes are paid at the municipal tax office and payment there can be specified for borough taxes only. Delinquent taxes are paid at the county’s Tax Claim office. Payments made there are applied first to any administrative fees, then applied to the bills from the municipality, school district and county evenly.