UNION TOWNSHIP Workers receive raises in contract

The supervisors will take up the issue of what time they should meet in January.
By MARY GRZEBIENIAK
VINDICATOR CORRESPONDENT
UNION -- Township supervisors have approved a 60-cent hourly across-the-board pay raise for some township employees.
The four-year contract covers the eight road workers and two clerical employees who are members of American Federation of State County and Municipal Employees.
The contract also provides for two extra paid holidays, primary election day and Columbus Day, for a total 15 paid holidays per year. The contract also provides that if one of the employees retires at 60, the township will pay major medical premiums until he or she is eligible for Social Security benefits.
Time change: In other business, supervisors set their next meeting for 3 p.m. Dec. 3. Several residents questioned why supervisors are returning to a daytime meeting after it was changed to 6 p.m. at the beginning of the summer.
Supervisor Kevin Guinaugh replied that it is difficult for some people to make night meetings in the winter. Supervisor Chairman Ralph Nuzzo said a decision about 2002 meeting times will be made at the January reorganization meeting. Some residents had complained that working people find it difficult to attend 3 p.m. sessions.
Other business: Supervisors also agreed to lease a new copy machine and maintain the service agreement on the current model. Cost for both under the lease agreement will be $237 per month compared to the $166 they are paying now.
Nuzzo said interviews have begun for a new police officer, and the new police car will soon be in service.
He also reported that streetlights will soon be installed at West Washington Street and Winter Road and that four-way stop signs will be installed at West Washington and Scotland Lane.
He said the new traffic light also has been installed at Scotland Lane and U.S. Route 224. A resident questioned why the cost was $55,000 instead of the $19,000 estimated by Supervisor Steve Galizia.
Galizia explained that the state required the township to put in pedestrian crosswalks with buttons on poles to activate the lights. That helped drive the cost up to $55,000, he said.