LEESBURG – Leesburg Town Council approved an alley vacation Monday.
Attorney Travis McConnell was at the meeting on behalf of petitioners Roy and Barbara Hamer. McConnell said certified mail was sent to neighbors and they all were returned with the exception of one, which was refused.
Street Commissioner Craig Charlton asked if it was a right-of-way for utilities or was it deemed an alley.
McConnell said it was a platted alley, but it’s unused grass.
Councilman Doug Jones asked if the alley will be separated between the neighbors. McConnell said yes, that’s how the law works.
There were no remonstrators.
Also, the Council approved a quote of $72,000, on the high end, for drain cleaning from Insight Pipe Contracting, Harmony, Pa. The Council also approved for $6,000 from the roads and streets fund to be encumbered from 2021 for the project.
Charlton said Insight Pipe Contracting will clean out 480 feet of center alley storm drain that has a 24-inch diameter. Charlton said it’s not the town’s main storm drain, but is the town’s center storm drain. Everything west of Pearl Street drains into it. It is something the town has to maintain the integrity of, he said.
Charlton said he didn’t receive quotes from other companies. He reached out to Insight Pipe Contracting after the company was awarded a job by the city of Warsaw since they would already be in the area. He said he felt they were taking advantage of pricing because the company would already be in the area. Charlton said Insight Pipe Contracting was the lowest bidder for that job and was pretty confident they would be on the low side if the town were to get other quotes.
Charlton said the town wouldn’t be able to encumber any money from 2021 if they waited to award the project until they got another quote.
He said it would be very hard to dig the storm drain up due to other utilities in the alley.
Councilwoman Christina Archer said the town has an opportunity to get the issue fixed and not wait until it gets worse. Councilman Tom Moore said the danger is if the drain collapses and then the town has additional cost of repairing the issue.
In other business, the Council:
• Learned from town attorney Nick Jacobs that former town attorney Verne Landis sent information over to Baker Tilly to let the company know the town wanted to move forward with a sewer rate review. Since then, he doesn’t believe anything’s been heard about it, but he would double check on it.
• Learned there were no communications from anyone who received letters about unpaid ordinance violations. Jacobs was asked to follow up on the letters.
• Learned from Jones the town “will probably need to shop around for different insurance at this point” in order to get traffic control covered in Leesburg.
Leesburg previously approached Claypool Police Department to do traffic control, but insurance became an issue. Jones said Leesburg’s current carrier doesn’t provide the necessary type of insurance.
He said he wanted permission to give the town’s current policy’s debt page to other insurance companies so they can look at it. Jones said he would like to see Claypool’s insurance to see how that insurance compares.
• Approved Archer as president and Moore as vice president for 2022.
