Photo by Heidi Zemach
Johnsonburg Municipal Authority Chairman Dale DeLong talks to Dan Guss, of Unit-Tec Consulting Engineers as Linda Tillack listens. 

Johnsonburg water rates will soon rise. 

By Heidi Zemach

Special to The Ridgway Record 

JOHNSONBURG – Johnsonburg residents will soon have higher water rates to pay.
The Johnsonburg Municipal Authority voted unanimously at last night’s meeting on a motion to raise water rates by $2 per month, or $6 per quarter.
The increase is needed because of to the cost of operation, said Chairman Dale DeLong. The Authority also voted to give its authority employees a 79-cent cost of living increase, and a $25 gift certificate to a local business for Christmas.
Board member Doug Haupright abstained on the salary increase for conflict of interest reasons, because his son is the foreman. Authority employees Linda Tillack and Jake (DJ) Haupright were given a $1 per hour pay raise. They were both listed as representatives who will be trained in the new employee handbook policy, as required by the new employee insurance plan.
The Authority also voted to accept the new employee handbook they helped create at previous meetings. The handbook was another requirement of the insurance company in order to agree to provide the plan.
The Authority also passed a motion to send a letter to the Johnsonburg Borough in favor of reappointing Doug Haupright to another term on the Authority’s board.
The Domtar Paper Mill has offered to donate a small lot where one of its pump stations sits to the Municipal Authority. The Authority agreed to accept the property.
The next meeting of the Municipal Authority was rescheduled to Dec. 2 at 6 p.m.
In other matters, DeLong voiced his great displeasure to Uni-Tec Consulting Engineer’s chief engineer Dan Guss, and his partner, who was absent, for a variety of things he was upset about. Uni-Tec and the Municipal Authority are under a strict consent decree (court order) to renovate the Wastewater Treatment Plant and begin building a new addition by August of 2009.
In Uni-Tec’s haste to keep to schedule, and without the landowner’s permission, the firm sent a group of surveyors onto the property that the Authority would like to purchase and build the addition on.
The Authority still hasn’t figured out who owns the property, however. Solicitor Liz Feronti said that the 2–acre parcel of land adjacent to the plant, that runs between the railroad tracks and the Clarion River, does not belong to CSX, Buffalo/Pittsburgh Railroad, or to PennDOT, as earlier believed. The deed may have been defaulted on, and/or transferred to the Commonwealth of Pennsylvania, Feronti said, but she’s not sure.
Until the Authority can figure out who owns it,  Feronti and DeLong made clear that the Authority does not want Uni-Tec people on the property.
DeLong also expressed extreme displeasure toward Guss for several things that resulted in the Municipal Authority missing out on important financing opportunities. First, the Authority recently learned that there had been federal grants available for Phase II, through the U.S. Army Corps of Engineers.
Unfortunately, they found out too late to apply for a grant. DeLong said Uni-Tec should have informed them about the grant opportunity. Second, Phase II had topped the North Central Region agency’s project list to receive a $1 million federal grant from the Economic Development Authority.
Unfortunately, the pre-application form that was mailed in was misplaced and the deadline for that grant was missed before the Municipal Authority could correct the problem.
Finally, during the Nov. 5 election, Pennsylvania voters approved $400 million for municipal projects and $800 million more is available in the Pennsylvania Government Fund. The applications for projects on the latter will be available in December. The board chair said he hopes that the Johnsonburg Municipal Authority will be ready in December to “be on the ground” to get that money.
“We need money and we’re not proud,” DeLong said.