Sandy Township awards towing service bids

DuBOIS — The Sandy Township Supervisors, at their meeting on Monday, awarded towing proposals from July 2023 through December 2025.

The township received a total of five proposals after putting out a Request for Proposals (RFP), said township Manager Shawn Arbaugh.

"We had the police chief, along with the sergeant, review the proposals, run the background checks, and our recommendation is to keep essentially the same stuff we have now, which is Mottman and Zimmerman Towing, doing the light-to-medium-duty and Bigler Boyz doing the heavy duty for that time frame," said Arbaugh.

Providing background on the proposal, Arbaugh said, "When we have an incident within Sandy Township, that does not include Interstate 80, where the police may need to have a vehicle towed from a vehicle accident or a breakdown, we have a rotational system we use for towing companies. So these two companies for light-medium duty, we know have a garage or an area that's locked and fenced in, it could be make sure that car is secure, make sure the equipment is secure in it. We run background checks to make sure that the folks that are dealing with the vehicles don't have any criminal background checks that would involve any kind of theft or anything like that. We can make sure the resident's belongings are safe and secure."

Additionally, if an individual wants a different company, to tow them, "then we (township) are fine," said Arbaugh. "We call that company as long as they can make it here within a reasonable time to tow it. But these two companies, if the person doesn't know or is involved an incident where they’re hospitalized, we call whoever is up on that towing list to come in and tow for us. It's worked out really good. We’ve been running for two years now and it's worked out phenomenal. Everybody seems to like that set up and the towing companies, we just make sure again that they have that secure, a little bit of more security than a typical towing operation may have."

The bids were unanimously awarded to Mottman's Towing, Zimmerman Towing and Bigler Boyz Towing.

Accessory garage height

Zoning and Code Enforcement Officer Pat Green said they are requesting to amend the zoning ordinance to increase the accessory garage structure height to 22 feet in residential urban/residential R1 zoning districts. Within the residential agricultural zoning areas, the township is requesting to increase the height to 25 feet.

"If you did approve that, we would seek comment from the (township) planning commission and it would be advertised before an official amendment could be executed," said Arbaugh.

The supervisors unanimously approved forwarding the draft ordinance amendment to the planning commission.

KTH invoices approved

Arbaugh said there are five invoices from KTH Architects which were part of the township and the city looking at fire companies and the City of DuBois building for renovations. The cost associated with those invoices is $2,125.29 for the township, and the city's cost is the same amount as the township's. The remaining amount will be paid for with the Strategic Management Planning Program (STMP).

Maple Avenue Turnback

The supervisors approved the final pay application and invoices for the Maple Avenue Project in the amount of $175,875.93 for overall total project cost of $1,271,873.80.

"We received approximately about $1.436 million for the Maple Avenue Project and you see we spent a total of $1.27 million so the remainder would be rolled into our liquid fuels account for other future road project needs," said Arbaugh. "I do want to point out that (acting manager) Chris Nasuti with the City of DuBois helped tremendously on this project in managing these pay applications. It's a pretty complex project because we bid it out as one roadway, but the City of DuBois and Sandy Township each had a financial component to it. So we saved money overall because we bid it out as one big project and Chris was instrumental in helping us put all that together."

Budget resolution

Arbaugh discussed a proposed budget resolution to reallocate funds because the township received an Appalachian Regional Commission (ARC) grant.

"This is just to put that ARC grant money into a line item and then have an expenditure," said Arbaugh. "When we did the budget, we weren't aware that we received the grant. So essentially we’re increasing the grant line item revenue by $278,463 and then we’ll have a local expenditure of $278,463. And that money is all for the Platt Road (sewer extension) project."

The supervisors approved the budget resolution.

Lot consolidation

The supervisors tabled taking any action on a lot consolidation request from property owners Richard Hopson and Luann Chiappelli in order to receive more information from the township solicitor on the matter.

Prior to the meeting, the supervisors held a public hearing on the request for an amendment to the Treasure Lake Planned Residential Development (PRD). The requested amendment would permit the consolidation of Section 13 lot 60 and 0.5799 acres of the Treasure Lake PRD development in the township.

Green said one resident has concerns that a section of the property to be consolidated is in one of the Gold Golf Course fairways.

"One of the issues that he brought up was that some of these areas are considered a common ground within Treasure Lake and there might be restrictive covenants with dividing that up and then selling it to a private land owner," said Green. "It seemed like it may be a legitimate concern, something to look into."

Green's suggestion is to turn this over to the solicitor for further review.

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