Board weighs giving building to agency

The agency still owes $60,000 on the building.

By MARY GRZEBIENIAK

VINDICATOR CORRESPONDENT

MERCER, Pa. — A newly elected county commissioner objected to the current board of commissioners’ plan to sign over title to a Sharon building to a nonprofit agency without requiring them to pay the balance owed on it.

Kenneth Ammann, who will take his place on the board of commissioners in January, said Tuesday that voters are “leery of how much help we are giving private organizations.”

Commissioner Brian Beader had announced that commissioners plan to give a building at 75 S. Dock Street, Sharon, to the Community Action Partnership. CAP has been in the building six years and pays $1,100 monthly to commissioners in a lease-to-buy agreement.

CAP is dedicated to anti-poverty efforts and is funded by a federal Community Services Block Grant.

Beader and Commissioner Olivia Lazor said CAP has been providing free administrative services to the county for the four-year-old “Weed and Seed” program, which is run through the district attorney’s office and local police departments.

The program is a combination of crime elimination and community renovation.

Lazor said CAP used its own staff for the Weed and Seed work and asked for no county assistance. The commissioners want to return the favor by canceling what is owed on the building. Commissioners did not have figures Tuesday on how much is still owed.

Amman said, however, that CAP still owes $180,000 of the $240,000 selling price. The organization has had the building about six years.

Commissioner Kenneth Seamans said the donation of the building to the agency might actually benefit the county because he said some major maintenance has to be done on the building.

Lazor agreed, stating, “It will benefit the county in the long run. I guarantee it.”

Also Tuesday:

U Beader announced that swearing-in of the new board of commissioners is set for 9 a.m. Jan. 7 in Courtroom 1 in the courthouse. Commissioners will then have their reorganizational meeting at 2 p.m. the same day in the commissioners’ assembly room in the courthouse basement. Business at this meeting will include naming a chairman, a chief clerk and solicitor, among other items. Beader also announced that commissioners will have a special meeting at 11 a.m. Dec. 6 in the commissioners’ conference room on the first floor for signing documents for a $41.9 million bond issue for the Sharon Sanitary Authority for a new sewer plant. Commissioners have agreed to guarantee the bond issue. The plant is necessary to meet state environmental requirements.

UCommissioners put off action on a request from Ryan Eggleston, the Greenville Borough manager, for the county to reactivate the Mercer County Redevelopment Authority. Commissioners want to know more about the reasons for the request and whether such a reactivation would jeopardize Penn Northwest’s status as lead economic development authority.