Here is the agenda for a Special Council meeting held at the Borough Hall last night. Councilor Mary Barninger, Council vice-president, convened the meeting at 7:22 p.m. Council president Mary Wickenheiser is on vacation, as is Councilor Duncan and the mayor. Attending the meeting were Councilors Michael Beury, Renae Sears, Kelly Murphy, Jim Smith and borough manager, Norm Meiskey. Two citizens attended the meeting.

The meeting began later than advertised because the scheduled Highway Committee ran was still in progress.

The special meeting was called to consider “awarding the Plane Street Phase I Community Development Block Grant Project to the lowest responsible bidder” and “other Borough business.”

During the meeting, there was a smattering of discussion about the bids received; among the lower bids received, the bids received were “remarkably close” to one another. Following deliberation about past performance of several of the bidders, there were no issues with any of them, and the determination was to award the project to low-bidder, Pennsy Supply. The winning bid for the Project is $321,956 and change.

Only one “other business” topic was introduced; it dealt with a local organization’s submission of a Borough “facilities use” request. The Council considered the request and had questions about incomplete information. Borough manager Meiskey suggested an “open speaker” telephone call with the organization’s point of contact to get resolutions to the Councilors’ questions. Following the telephone call with the organization’s point of contact, the Council conditionally approved the request for a September 10, 2011 special event. The conditions defined will be addressed by the organization and full clarification will be forwarded to the Borough later today.

During the “citizen comments” the topic of meeting comments protocol was discussed as one citizen asked for clarification about the nature and the timing of citizen comments during any council meeting. Borough manager Meiskey explained the state code identifying the procedures to the citizen’s satisfaction.

 The meeting was adjourned at 8:05 pm.