BOROUGH OF WIND GAP 545 East West Street WIND GAP, PA 18091 610-863-7288 FAX 610-863-1011 Wind Gap Borough Council meeting on Monday, March 3, 2025, was called to order at 7:00 p.m. by Council President George Hinton, at which time he reminded those present that the meeting was being recorded. In attendance were Council members Steve Bender, Mark Crossen, Dave Manzo, Patrick Webber, and Alex Cortezzo. Jason Boulette joined us via telephone. Also in attendance were Mayor Wesley J. Smith, Borough Solicitor Ronald Karasek, Borough Engineer Brian Pysher and Borough Manager Louise Firestone. Absent was Junior Council member Olivia Bentley. PUBLIC COMMENT 1. Dave Hess, Wind Gap Emergency Management Coordinator, came before Council with concerns about the Wind Gap Fire Company Social Hall. He heard that the property is to be sold. George Hinton said that the Chief was present at previous meetings to explain to Council about the Fire Company's finances and to keep them informed about the social hall property. The Fire Company reported that financially, with the cost to keep the hall running and pay off the fire trucks, they cannot survive unless they sell the property. A motion was made and voted on to allow the fire company to sell the social hall to pay off the mortgage, one of the fire trucks and pay down the other fire truck in order to keep the fire company solvent. Dave expressed his concern as this is a major decision, that building is extremely important, especially to Emergency Management and has been in their plan for the past three years. It is the primary shelter, for anyone displaced, for any reason. Dave asked that Council really think about their decision for the good of the residents of Wind Gap. As the Emergency Management Coordinator, he asked Council to inform him if the hall is sold, what is the plan for a shelter within the borough. APPROVAL OF MINUTES On motion by Dave Manzo to approve the February 18, 2025, minutes and seconded by Patrick Webber. Roll call vote taken. Roll call vote taken. APPROVAL OF EXPENSES On motion by Dave Manzo approve the expenses in the amount of $31,536.80 and seconded by Patrick Webber. Roll call vote taken. Council agreed unanimously. SOLICITOR'S REPORT Attorney Karasek reported that he has spent a lot of time with research and conversation with the Borough Zoning Officer, Brian Pysher, to complete all the necessary information to draft the Injunction Complaint for 332 Broadway, LLC. Once completed, Attorney Karasek will provide Council with a copy for their review. 1 ENGINEER'S REPORT Brian Pysher reported that he received the engineering plans for the park baseball field equipment. He will coordinate with Green Knight regarding the staking of the concrete slabs for the dugouts. Wawa resubmitted their plans without their traffic study. Brian reached out to the attorney for Wawa, who indicated that the traffic study is not done, but when is it completed they will forward it to our traffic engineer for review. Brian advised them that it is not acceptable, all documentation needs to be submitted together to consider it a submission. Last Wednesday, Rob Hoffman, Traffic Engineer from Traffic Planning and Design, representing Wawa, sent out an electronic submission of the traffic study that was forwarded to Borough Council. Wawa will be on the agenda for Thursday, March 20, 2025, Planning Commission meeting. He spoke with the Borough's Traffic Engineer, Peter Terry regarding the review letter, he is hoping to have it finalized by the end of this week. Brian is completing his review letter but, they do not have a ton of issues regarding the land development and subdivision ordinance. One issue they still have is with emergency access, which is a waiver request. According to their response, they spoke with the Fire Chief who does not have an issue with it other than moving the fire hydrant to the south side of the entrance. George added that the Fire Company requested an additional fire hydrant. We received revised plans for the Cubes at Wind Gap, CRG. Included in their submission is the agreement that outlines the maintenance of the road, it is not in-depth or detailed. He has an issue with that being a private road and how it is to be maintained. There needs to be discussion about that along with the Alpha Road realignment and how that is going to feed into the end of Industrial Drive. Brian informed Council that hard copies are here in the office should anyone want to review them. Brian will have the engineering review letters prior to the planning meeting. George stated there has been a lot of discussion regarding upper Alpha Road through North Broadway as there is no financial gain from our side to maintain Industrial Drive. Brian, members of Council and councilmen serving on the Planning Commission expressed concern that two major land development submissions scheduled to be heard at the same Planning Commission meeting should be looked at because of the tremendous amount of documents to be reviewed, discussed and acted upon. Brian said that the cost to survey the alley that goes behind the movie theatre (School Alley) would be approximately $750 to $1,500. George said that a complaint was received from the church on the corner of East Mechanic. Traffic turning off of Mechanic Street into the alley is forced onto their property because the adjoining property has yard items that block the alley from being straight.. Jason Boulette said that he looked over the traffic study for Wawa and his reading of it was that they are expecting to generate about 400 car trips a day with no impact on the other intersections. He is looking forward to reading Mr. Terry's review of the study. A resident on Roosevelt contacted Jason regarding concerns about not having a storm drain in the street in front of his property. The resident indicated that he is getting daily tickets and fines due to the ice buildup. George said that person is creating water and ice in the street because he is illegally pumping the water from his basement into the curbline which is prohibited by a borough ordinance. When it gets extremely cold, it freezes in the street and the salt truck has to go and salt it. He pumped his water into his backyard for months and changed it to pump it out into the street. He is creating it and wants us to put a box in sO he can pump it into the drain. A conservative estimate to install a box could be upwards of $10,000. Is it worth $10,000 of taxpayers' money to install this piping system when the previous remedy was to pump the water out to the backyard, which goes into a wooded area. 2 NEW BUSINESS There was no New Business to be heard at this time. OLD BUSINESS There was no Old Business to be heard at this time. PUBLIC COMMENT No public comments were heard at this time, ADJOURNMENT On motion by Dave Manzo to adjourn the meeting of. March 3, 2025. Council agreed unanimously. The meeting of March 3, 2025, adjourned at 8:04 p.m. uune Ache Louise Firestone, Borough Manager 3