ROADS DOMINATE BORO DISCUSSION

Closed and detoured roads consumed most of the discussion during Wednesday night's Coudersport Borough Council meeting.

The U.S. Route 6 detour has brought concerns of speeding to traffic accidents, explained Police Chief Lee Gross.

A resident on Allegany Avenue, the only shortcut around the one-way streets, complained about speeding, but the fastest vehicle he clocked was an ambulance with its red lights on doing 32 mph in the 25 mph zone, Gross said.

Popping up at various locations along the detour is a speed monitoring device. Gross said it had been on Mill and Oak streets and Allegany Avenue and would likely be moved on to Maple Street soon.

Two traffic accidents have also occurred on Borie Street, which never had stop signs until the detour. One was a minor accident and the other involved the fire department extricating an entrapped passenger in an overturned SUV.

Uncover the stop sign for traffic traveling west down Oak Street was one solution to the problem. Gross explained that the traffic stops for the sign at Maple Street but then goes through the sign at Oak Street.

"I don't know what else to do," Gross said of the stop signs. "They are practically in the middle of the road."

Signs that are in the middle of the road around Coudersport are the bright green crosswalk signs. The borough police and road crew have placed signs around the borough to remind people to stop for pedestrians in crosswalks.

Travel has been limited to nothing but All Terrain Vehicles on the old railroad grade heading west to Toles Hollow Road despite an attempt to stop all traffic.

The path had been barricaded on both ends to stop the ATVs from tearing up the grade as well as stopping people from dumping garbage, explained Borough Manager Marlin Moore.

He added later that the main concern with the ATVs was that the grade was too wet and muddy, a problem that should be corrected by now.

Solicitor Dan Glassmire pointed out that people have used game cameras to capture images of license plates or other identifying features, and Gene Neefe added that people often discard things that have their names or other identifying information.

The council decided to reopen the grade and monitor it better to keep it clean.

The borough may be trying a new method this summer for sealing the streets. Moore said he was looking into a seal coat slurry mixture that he had seen used downstate but never this far north until he heard Shinglehouse uses it.

The mixture is like blacktop, rather than the oil and chips currently in use.

"It's a little more per square yard," Moore said, "but you don't have the clean up."

Moore said he will be going to Shinglehouse to talk with people and look at the streets himself.

June Cornish is now certified as a playground safety inspector, Moore said. Her certificate lets her inspect the borough's playgrounds, but she would have to go back for additional classes and testing to be able to inspect other playgrounds.

"She can inspect our playgrounds to certify them as safe to the insurance company's specifications," Moore said.

The board also approved a contract with Wade Associates of Harrisburg for a feasibility study on the pool. The $24,820 study is needed to apply for a grant to remodel the pool or build a new one, he added.

Moore said one of the things he liked about Wade was that they dealt primarily with Pennsylvania pools and were very familiar with the codes.

The only other bid was from La Bella Associates, of Rochester, for $25,000. Little to nothing could be found on their knowledge of the rules and codes relating to Pennsylvania pools, he said.

Of the $24,820, $12,500 will be paid for by a grant, he pointed out, leaving only $12,320 to be paid by the borough.

Moore said he will be advertising for a few part-time summer employees.

Gerry Chitester said he felt it is the borough's responsibility to follow up on the Veterans Memorial that will be part of the arboretum.

"Several names are missing," he said, "and people are going to come back to us since it is on our property."

Council President Andy Dubots said he thought the American Legion had noticed the missing names and was making a new list.

Lou Karija pointed out that the names on the memorial would be movable, and extra spaces were allotted for adding missing and new names.