Brownsville employees remain laid off
BROWNSVILLE – Last year’s tax anticipation loan is now paid off, but Brownsville Borough still can’t borough money against this year’s anticipated revenue and the borough employees remain laid off. “We paid our anticipation loan off the day it was due. We have some other problems at this time. National City (Bank) turned down our loan,” said borough councilman John Hosler. “We have another corporation that I think will loan us the money by the end of the week.”
The borough is seeking a $75,000 tax anticipation loan so it can recall laid off borough police, street department workers, office and maintenance staff. Only the part-time borough manager has remained on the job since the lay-offs went into effect at the beginning of December so that year-end reports and unemployment forms could be processed.
According to Lewis Hosler Jr., a street department member and the son of the mayor Lewis Hosler Sr., Dana Berish of the street department was called out Tuesday night after a sudden snowfall caused the streets to become slick. Two accidents were reported on High Street prior to 9 p.m. The borough does have state Liquid Fuels funds to pay the street department workers in the event of an emergency like Tuesday’s snowfall.
“We had called him before the accidents occurred, but he hadn’t gotten to High Street yet. He had just started out,” said council president Jack Lawver.
Lawver said he would be monitoring the roads and would have another crewmember out to make sure the roads were clear for school buses Wednesday morning.
At the beginning of December Brownsville still owed $50,000 on its $75,000 2006 tax anticipation loan. The borough managed to scrape together enough from street opening fees, state reimbursements and property taxes to pay the balance by the end of the year.
“We had one person come in and pay our gas bill. He paid over $1,100,” Hosler said. “I’d like to thank everyone who came and paid their taxes. We had over $13,000 paid so we could pay off our tax loan.”
In other matters, Brownsville Area Revitalization Corporation executive director Alison McConnell invited members of the council and the general public to attend BARC Board meetings on the second Monday of each month at 6:30 p.m. at the Flatiron Building community room. McConnell said the invitation was to give the public and elected officials a better understanding of the goals and objectives of the community development corporation.
Lester Ward, a borough resident, asked if the council ever held town meetings to get public input, or if they ever received reports from other organizations working in the community.
“Even though I attend the town council meetings, I tend to get most of my information from the newspaper,” Ward said.
Ward said the elected officials need to be involved with or at least aware of what is going on with the various community groups if there is to be progress in the community.