Miles Brothers LLC gave another presentation Feb. 2 to Clarion Borough Council concerning its proposed Glassworks Business Park project.
Theron Miles and his brothers gave several presentations in the last few weeks regarding their plan.
Miles and his brothers were looking for volunteers to be a part of a committee regarding financing the project. Members from the three taxing bodies for the piece of property, Clarion County, Clarion Area School District and Clarion Borough have all agreed to join the committee.
At previous meeting Clarion County Commissioners Ted Tharan was elected by the commissioners to represent the county on the committee. Todd Bauer volunteered to represent Clarion Area School District.
At the Feb. 2 Clarion Borough Council meeting, council president Carol Lapinto said she would represent the borough, and she would be bringing along borough secretary Mark Hall.
Miles said the piece of property he and his brothers own is 28 acres. Miles said there are 24 acres that are buildable.
“There is a wealth of industrial infrastructure around the property,” Miles said.
There are water, sewer and gas lines that run underneath the property that are all large enough to support the proposed project. Those lines originally serviced the glass plant.
“The area has always been infrastructure and we hope it remains infrastructure,” said Miles. “We feel this project will benefit the whole town as well as the county.”
Another speaker for the Miles brothers was Jeff Mills of Reed Smith and Associates of Pittsburgh.
Mills gave more specifics about the proposed project.
The construction of the building would create around 181 construction jobs, with an average salary of $49,000.
Once the building is complete there would be around 203 new jobs.
“The old glass plant had around 1,500 employees, this project won’t come close to that but 203 jobs is better than none, and we hope there will be spin off jobs around the area as well,” Mills said.
Lapinto said she was looking forward to being part of the committee and wished the Miles brothers the best of luck.
Other business
After the Glassworks presentation the regular borough council meeting commenced.
Absent from the meeting were council members Jason Noto and Charles Bartley. Bartley has resigned from council.
In a letter to the borough, Bartley said he would not be able to attend many of the meetings because of a conflict with his work schedule.
Barley thanked the borough council members for their work, as well as the borough employees for all the hard work they do, and wished the borough the best of luck in the future.
Following the acceptance of Bartley’s resignation, Hall said the borough must now fill the open position on the board.
“By law we have to fill the vacant position within 30 days, so our next meeting in March is exactly 30 days from now so we should be able to fill the position by the next regular meeting,” Hall said.
Hall said any person wishing to, may submit a letter of interest as well as a resume to the bough office. Letters of interest must be received by 11 a.m. on Feb. 22
Anyone wishing to submit a letter of interest must be a registered voter, and must have lived in the borough for at least one year.
The appointment will be for a period of less than two years, to include the remainder of 2016 and 2017.
The appointed person or any other registered voter of Clarion Borough would then be eligible to run in the May primary and the November general election for a two-year term to complete the four-year term of Bartley.
In other business, the borough council voted in favor of accepting offers from S&T Bank to finance the new front end loader and police car the borough will be purchasing.
S&T will finance both purchases for 36 months at a rate of 2.03 percent, and a $100 fee.
“We went to several local banks seeking financing for these two purchases, and S&T had the best rate,” Hall said.
Council also voted to give permission to advertise a new ordinance – if approved – making areas of three borough streets no parking at any time.
The streets are, the west side of Second Avenue from Wood Street to South Street; the west side of North Fifth Avenue from Liberty Street to Ridge Road; and the west side of Fern Street from Penn Avenue to Greenville Avenue.
Hall said the reason for making those areas no parking at any time is because the borough’s plow trucks have had a hard time removing snow in those areas because of parked cars.
Council Member Rachel Roberts asked if making these areas no at parking any time would affect anybody who lives nears those areas and only has those areas to park in.
Hall said there should not be any issue, and the issue was discussed in the housing and zoning committee meeting in January.
The new ordinance will be voted on at the March regular council meeting.
The borough is also seeking to hire three part-time employees, two part-time public works employees for $12.50 an hour, and one part-time meter enforcement officer for $9.23 an hour.