By BRETT R. WHITLING
Staff writer
CLARION – The former site of the Owens-Illinois glass plant is one big step closer to a business development tax break following Clarion Borough Council’s formal approval of tax increment financing.
Clarion Borough Council this month adopted a resolution to create the Tax Increment Financing District on the former O-I glass plant site where the Miles Brothers LLC plan to turn the land into a business park.
The action repealed any ordinance or resolutions which may have been on the property that caused conflict.
This was the public hearing the Miles Brothers needed in order to have the TIF plan get started.
In order for the Miles Brothers to have received approval to start the TIF plan, they needed the approval of each of the three taxing entities where the business park will be planned.
The Miles Brothers received initial approval from Clarion Borough on Aug. 2, and final approval from Clarion Area School District on Aug. 16 and final approval from Clarion County on Aug. 23.
The Miles Brothers plan six buildings designed for light industrial businesses. It is estimated the business park could create 225 jobs for the area.
Library drain issues
During the September council meeting, council member Jason Noto brought up an issue about the drain near the basement entrance to the Clarion Library.
Noto reported the drain was not large enough to retain large amounts of water during a heavy rain storm and on occasion would cause flooding in the basement.
A heavy rainstorm from September caused the library over $2,000 in cleanup costs due to flooding in the basement.
Originally there was talk replacing the pipe under the sidewalk but that involved a high amount of work and cost.
During the October council meeting, Noto reported from an engineer of a pipe just below the drain which is large enough to catch the water from a heavy down pour.
The issue lies with the drain itself is not large enough to handle a large amount of water.
“Our idea is to increase the size of the (drain) area and install a larger pipe,” Noto said. “Right now, the smaller pipe is blocking everything from going down in so it is bottlenecking on top.”
Aside from installing a larger pipe, they also plan to install a larger water basin to hold more water.
“We hope without having to tear more concrete up than we actually need to,” Noto said.
Clarion Borough secretary Mark E. Hall said he had information from an engineer which came in earlier in the day but planned to release the information at a later time.
“It’s a bit of a sticker shock,” Hall said.