Borough Council Meeting Votes: September 16th, 2010

Borough Council met tonight on September 16, 2010 from 7:30 PM until approximately 9:20 PM, led by borough council President Pete Alyanakian. At the meeting, all council members except former President Peter Williamson were present.

As a resident, here’s what may affect you:

• If you want to make sure your home is included in the Emergency Management System which will call you by phone in the event of an emergency, send your phone number to borough manager Jeff Smith, whose email address appears on the Media Borough Website.
• A new family restaurant is applying to inhabit at 1 W. Front St. (formerly Benjamin’s Family Market) called the “Front Street Fountain.” It’s a “soda-fountain” style restaurant which is trying to create a community center and restaurant for residents with families.
• If your children attend Media Providence Friends School, the no parking zone will be extended to improve flow during pickup times on 4th street.
• If you want to extend your deck on your property, it should now be easier with changes to the impervious coverage rules.
• The tennis courts in Media will be resurfaced

Additional highlights of the meeting were:

• Much discussion regarding the 3rd Street Dam (prompted by me)
• Cocco’s Pizza and concern from nearby residents. Unfortunately, Solicitor Scott indicated that because the property is mostly in Upper Providence, the borough is limited in terms of our control over what they do. He suggested attending Upper Providence meetings to express your opinions regarding the new business.
• The “Minimum Municipal Obligation” to borough employee pension funds in the amount of $39,000 dollars, and how well educated borough council members were regarding pensions and market valuations, etc.
• A short discussion about the status of the Hampton Inn

The actual votes at the meeting were as follows:

• Yes: To appoint Mayor McMahon, Police Chief Wusinich, and President Alyanakian to determine the detour route for Orange St. for the MBA Food and Craft fair scheduled for October 3rd. Unanimous.
• Yes: To remove the white crosswalk at 2nd and Monroe Street for public safety concerns. Unanimous.
• Yes: Unanimous vote to update the “impervious coverage” rules to the borough code, to make it easier for residents to add decks, etc. on their home without going through a costly zoning process. Unanimous.
• Yes: To pay into the Non-Uniformed Employee Pension fund the amount of $39,000 to use “smoothing”, required by the state and recommended by the auditor. Opposed by Jim Cunningham.
• Recommendation by council to not oppose planning commission application for new tenant of 1 W. Front St. (formerly Benjamin’s Family Market)
• Yes: To accept the resignation of Kevin Boyer from the Recreation board. Unanimous.
• Yes: To pay $8,900 to Joe Scheidly & Son to resurface tennis courts in Media Borough. Unanimous.
• Yes: To pay the August bills in the amounts of $350,975.37 from the General Fund, $8,086.73 from the Recreation Fund, and $4,923.15 from the Capital Fund. Opposed by Jim Cunningham. Dr. Stein abstained (he was not in the room).
• Yes: To accept the HARB choice of colors for 110 W. Front St. Unanimous. Dr. Stein abstained (he was not in the room).
• Yes: Front St. between Monroe and Jackson on north side of the street, extending the residential parking to 8 o’clock. Unanimous.
• Yes: Extending existing no parking zone between 8 AM to 5 PM on south side of 4th Street between Broomall Street to Olive Street near Media Friends School. Unanimous.
• Yes: Add a handicapped parking spot at 431 W. Baltimore Ave. Unanimous.
• Yes: Choose Jeff Dowd from Zommick McMahon Realtors to represent 1 West State Street for sale or rental, pending contract passed legal. Unanimous.
• Yes: HIPAA agreement adoption. Unanimous.

As a note: Almost every vote was unanimous, save a few votes which were opposed solely by Mr. Cunningham for unknown reasons.

The meeting appeared lacked much controversy, save:

• One resident wished to complain further about Jim Cunningham‘s behavior in the August meeting, who considered it “threatening” and against borough employees code of conduct.
• A resident asked why President Pete Alyanakian was not chair of any committees which were related to the issues he brought up in July after he took over as President. Pete Alyanakian indicated that he preferred to delegate that responsibility to his fellow council members. To be fair, delegation is perhaps the incorrect term, in that very little changed in committee assignments after Alyanakian and Rehoric took office.
• Another resident asked if council members had any education regarding pension plans, to which they all responded that they did not. Mayor McMahon agreed that borough council should be better educated about pension plans.
• I asked Pete Alyanakian as a member of Borough Council since 1998 2000 why the 3rd Street Dam has taken 13 years to deal with, and what he, as Borough Council President, hopes to do about it. His response and the discussions will be covered in another post.

The major issues which were brought up were the 3rd Street Dam, the Minimum Municipal Obligation (MMO) issues regarding pensions, which can be outlined in more detail in a future article.