NEW WILMINGTON, PA. Council enforces ordinance mandating sidewalk repair

Borough council must amend the ordinance to include fines for violators.
By MARY GRZEBIENIAK
VINDICATOR CORRESPONDENT
NEW WILMINGTON, Pa. -- Borough officials are ready to prosecute some 75 property owners who have refused repeated requests to fix defective sidewalks in front of their properties.
Borough council unanimously agreed Monday to begin enforcement of the sidewalk ordinance, which requires residents to repair sidewalks that are broken or pose a trip hazard.
Prosecution will begin with property owners on South Market Street, followed by Neshannock Avenue, because they are the busiest streets in the borough, council agreed.
All the affected homeowners have received at least two letters over the past 18 months informing them the deadline for repair has passed. The repairs were to be completed last fall, council president Larry Wagner said.
Fines
Council, however, will have to wait at least two months before it can impose fines for violators. A check of the borough ordinance by Borough Solicitor Tom Mansell revealed that no fine is specified for violators.
Lawmakers directed Mansell to draw up an amendment for the Sept. 8 meeting. The amendment will then have to be advertised before being adopted, probably in October.
Although no fine was specified, Mansell recommended it be lower than the $600-per-day fine imposed for residents who fail to keep their sidewalks clear of snow and ice because the defective sidewalks pose a lesser hazard.
Cable TV system
Lawmakers also agreed to withhold the final $60,000 payment on the new cable television system because of repeated outages even in mildly inclement weather.
Thayer Power & amp; Communications Inc. of Butler has just finished the $601,000 cable system update. Council member George Shaffer said the company put in a new grounding system, hoping that would solve the problem, and will continue to test to determine what is causing the problem. Resident cable fees jumped from $12 to $29.95 per month in July for the new system, which increased the number of channels from 30 to 53.
Police Chief Carmen Piccirillo told grocer Jeff Gilliland that efforts will be made to direct tourists at this weekend's chamber of commerce arts festival to special parking so that merchants in the business district will not lose customers.
Gilliland asked at the last meeting what provisions were being made to protect local businesses during the festival.
Borough Secretary Sharon Edmiston reported the Pennsylvania Department of Environmental Protection has indicated it may pay less than the 90 percent share of a new leaf vacuum truck it had promised.
She said DEP may now pay only 30 percent, and she is trying to determine the reason why. The borough outlawed open burning to qualify for the grant for the truck.