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Media Borough Workshop Summary for January 6th, 2010

Jan 07

Media Borough Workshop Summary for January 6th, 2010

Media Borough Council met for their first meeting of 2011 at 7:30 PM on Thursday, January 6th.

Dumpsters, Trash, and Media Businesses

Councilman Dr. Eric Stein introduced a discussion with photo handouts showing overflowing dumpsters, medical waste, and leaking oil drums along Jasper Street and behind other businesses. The discussion centered around the best way to encourage Media businesses to keep their dumpster and trash areas clean, within code and environmentally sound.

Borough Manager Jeff Smith outlined the current process the Borough could follow in order to enforce the code:

  1. Send a letter to a business indicating a code violation, asking the business to rectify
  2. Send a Property Maintenance Violation which a business could then appeal
  3. The borough  could file a civil complaint which would then be heard in District Court.

In step 3, the maximum fine which could be levied by the District Court Judge would be a maximum fine of $1000.00.

The issue will be discussed further in the Community Design and Code Enforcement committees.

Community Service Awards?

Councilwoman Dawn Roe has been investigating creating a Community Service award which would publicly recognize a member of the Media community on a regular basis. She had already solicited nominations from Borough Council members as an exercise prior to the meeting.

Discussion surrounded the criteria and process for selecting candidates, as well as the frequency and how members should be recognized, either with a publicly displayed plaque, and an additional plaque given to each awardee.

Brandywine may sponsor Media Events

Borough Council President Pete Alyanakian discussed Brandywine Conference and Visitor’s Bureau (“Brandywine CVB”) and the development of a sponsorship agreement through the Media Business Authority as part of a coordinated advertising campaign which includes counties outside of Philadelphia (Chester, Bucks, Montgomery, etc.). Each county will feature two towns as part of the advertisement, and Media and Wayne have been selected for Delaware County.

According to Mr. Alyanakian, because Brandywine CVB will be moving their offices to Rose Tree road this June, they wish to get more involved with Media events and have offered $5,000 to sponsor the food festival, and $5,000 to sponsor the car show, and in addition, two major street events in the fall. One would be a new event, one would be “taking over” an existing event, coordinated with the MBA. Mr. Alyanakian stressed a few times that “details need to be worked out.”

According to Mr. Alyanakian, a meeting is scheduled for next Wednesday evening (January 12th, 2011) to work out the details. Councilman Dr. Eric Stein was invited to participate in the meeting. Brandywine CVB has offered up to $30,000 in sponsorship money for Media events.

Monica Simpson expressed a concern that happened in the past with Town Talk‘s Super Sunday event, which when handed over to Town Talk, resulted in loss of control over how the event was run, as well as revenue losses to the Media Business Authority. In addition, she expressed concern that Brandywine CVB may not continue to sponsor events in the future.

Brandywine CVB receives its funding from Delaware County.

Re-appointments to Boards and Commissions

Borough Council President Pete Alyanakian brought up an issue regarding automatic re-appointment of members of Media’s Boards and Commissions.

President Alyanakian:

“I’m really not inclined to move ahead with the just the standard rollover of appointments, and this year I’d really like to advertise at this month’s meeting for the expiring terms on the various boards and commissions… I think after being on this council almost 11 years now, it’s been a policy which has always kind of been there, and I really don’t think it’s … you know, really to the benefits of the residents of Media who do want to serve on commissions, and some people have been on these commission for dozens of years, in some cases, if we open it up and get some different people to come on these boards… at least advertise the expiring term to see if people are interested before we automatically roll over the appointments.”

Currently, when a member’s term expires, they are sent a letter asking them if they would like to discontinue their term, otherwise it renews automatically.

Councilwoman Dawn Roe agreed, indicating that she felt it was similar to Council being elected every four years, and that if other people were suited for the position, we should advertise it.

Councilman Peter Williamson indicated that he didn’t disagree, but indicated that perhaps term limits would be a better approach. He also indicated that the expiring terms which Mr. Alyanakian referred to had already received their letter, and had already renewed their terms, and didn’t want to be impolite to those committee members who had already rolled over in 2011. He indicated that some committees to which Mr. Alyanakian referred had already met.

Councilwoman Monica Simpson commented that some committees and boards were difficult to fill completely with volunteers, and expressed that she didn’t want to offend existing volunteers.

Councilwoman Monika Rehoric suggested talking with members of committees whose terms are expiring and perhaps finding out if they felt beholden to continue to serve and if they stepped away, they would hurt other members of the board.

The consensus was that advertising expiring terms was a good idea, however, the timing was too late for this year’s committee and board members whose terms had just been renewed and that it should be implemented in the coming year.

Miscellaneous Items of Interest

  • Recommendation by Borough Engineer F. Clark “Sandy” Walton to inspect the 3rd Street Dam to get a current inspection report before “next Friday” (The borough is currently in litigation with Delaware County and Broomall’s Lake)
  • Councilman Jim Cunningham chose not to discuss his “Revision to the Borough Ethics Policy Statement“, the first item on his portion of the agenda
  • The Hampton Inn was originally scheduled to present an application, but didn’t, resulting in a revised agenda for the meeting
  • Councilman Dr. Eric Stein indicated that Media Borough and the Recreation Board are working on organizing discounted ski lift tickets during the wintertime. Details are still pending.