Penbrook Borough Caucus Meeting Minutes March 17, 2025 6:30 PM 1. Call to order and roll call: President Deardorff called the public meeting to order at 6:30 pm, All elected officials were present. Kern and Hogarth were also present. 2. Citizen Comments on Agenda Items - N/A 3. Discussion and Action Items A. Senator Kim and her Chief of Staff, Doug Brown introduced themselves to all in attendance. The Senator will be trying to increase her availability to Penbrook residents by having satellite office hours in the borough building beginning in April for 2 hours each month. B. Representative Fleming took a few minutes to review the Commonwealth's budget proposal. C. Officer Tritt introduced his dog Remmie, a German short-haired pointer, to the Council members. Chief Hogarth said he would like to consider a community service K9 program using Officer Tritt and Remmie. Officer Tritt provided Council with a proposal book and would like to attend a future Caucus meeting with K9 handler Sheaffer from West Shore Regional Police. Sheaffer currently handles a community service K9 and can talk about the advantages of having such a program. Sheaffer was unavailable for tonight's meeting. This will be scheduled for the May Caucus meeting. D. Hogarth asked if there were any updates to the excel spreadsheet draft. There were not. Newcomer asked if any content was received, to which there was not. Hogarth reminded all that the deadline to have a June publication was April 26. E. Hogarth asked Council to consider a web page redesign. He spoke with current webmaster, Rick Levandusky who will present some sample changes in the coming weeks. F. Several Council members had questions about IT issues specifically email access and passwords. Can they be changed by the user? Why or why not? Can we have aliases with names rather than just Wardia and SO on? What happened with the recent email issue that caused the brief shut down and multi factor to be turned on? Hogarth will have to inquire with MIS. Newcomer asked if they would provide something in writing. Questions have been asked about the vulnerability testing that was discussed at a budget meeting a couple of years ago. Hogarth reminded everyone that there was a cost of approximately $16,000.00 from one service provider but it was agreed that an RFP should be written and sent out. Once one is written it can be sent out and Council can evaluate what should be done. G. Solicitor Kern is asking if anyone has further comment regarding the Brewpub Ordinance or Zoning drafts. There were no additional comments at this time. This topic should be added to the April Caucus. H. Kern reviewed her comments to the proposed Developer's agreement submitted by the applicant for 650 S 28th St. Hogarth reported that the engineer's cost estimate was sent to the Borough's engineer, but the applicant had questions as to whether the security bond could be offered in cash and for how long that would be kept in escrow. Kern commented that it is customarily memorialized in the developer's agreement and stressed the reason why such agreements are usually drafted by a competent legal professional. Newcomer added a request that it be communicated to the applicant that Council is done going back and forth and paying the Solicitor to review documents that aren't prepared properly. It should be noted to the applicant that Council will consider one more time, the required documents. Otherwise, the applicant will be required to re-apply and start over with the amended process. It should also be noted for these minutes, that Council gave a conditional approval on September 3 but those conditions cannot be met by the applicant. Council can require the process to begin anew but is willing to move the process forward. L Members from the Paxtang Baseball Association notified the Borough because another organization, The Midstate Mavericks, would like to use the small ball field for practices. Paxtang will work with the Mavericks to coordinate times and dates. Council agreed to have the solicitor draft new agreements for both organizations. J. Newcomer asked Council if we could consider changing back to a pavilion rental process like what was in place several years ago. Discussion regarding fees leaned toward a refundable security deposit only. Hogarth to explore sign board options. K. Hogarth updated Council on what happened and what's being done to secure one of the Borough's bank accounts when fraudulent checks started being issued. Hogarth reported that no money was lost, that M&T Bank has identified them and stopped payment and is moving the Borough to a new secure system in which software will identify previously established data and flag possible fraud. 4. Citizen Comments - N/A 5. Council Comments A. Moore inquired about getting equipment to hold doors open in the Community Room. B. Newcomer inquired about the camera at Little Valley and the possibility of coordinating with St. Mags and their security measures. He also asked about changing the table configuration for Caucus meetings. C. Budine would like the Council meeting minutes to be updated to reflect the codes reports was sent to all elected officials. 6. The meeting was adjourned at 8:36 pm. Respectfully submitted, Joseph Hogarth Borough Secretary