Upper Schuylkill pushes pedestrian program
BY LESLIE RICHARDSON
06/22/2007
MAHANOY CITY — Members of the Upper Schuylkill
steering committee are disheartened.
Ashland borough has opted out of its Pedestrian/Motor
Safety Program.
At a meeting Wednesday, committee member George Demko,
an Ashland borough councilman, said the borough’s police department
was against the idea.
“This is a great program. We know that, we’ve
worked it for two years,” Ashland police Chief Adam Bernodin
Jr. said Thursday. “We just ran into problems with it this year
with our contract and other issues that I really can’t get into.”
At a June 13 council meeting, the Ashland borough council
voted 4-2 to reverse its approval vote from its May meeting to accept
a grant from the Upper Schuylkill Pedestrian-Motor Safety Program.
The council was acting on a vote by its police officers,
who were concerned by a lack of overtime pay for officers working
more than 40 hours in the program and other issues that could be contrary
to their contract. Officers can’t be compelled to work without
overtime pay unless there is an emergency, according to Mayor Dennis
Kane at the June 13 meeting. Police officers receive overtime pay
during DUI/sobriety checkpoints and seat belt compliance initiatives.
Upper Schuylkill, a revitalization group including Ashland,
Frackville, Girardville, Mahanoy City, Ringtown and Shenandoah, received
the grant funding from the Pennsylvania Department of Transportation
to provide up to $5,000 per community for downtown police foot and
motor patrols.
Upper Schuylkill Director Patrice Radar said the money
would pay for engineering, education and law enforcement for pedestrian
safety in the designated downtown areas.
“In some cases, these areas are right along Route
61, like Frackville and Ashland, or Route 54, like Mahanoy City and
Shenandoah,” Radar said. “We are trying to calm traffic
so they can be walkable.”
Radar referred to pedestrian-versus-motor-vehicle accidents
in the past that ended tragically.
“Mr. Schilling in Ashland and Emil Yenchick in
Mahanoy City were both killed while walking in downtown areas,”
Radar said. “This program, with its education benefits, its engineering
to make walking easier and the enforcement of pedestrian laws, could
have prevented these deaths.”
Radar was referring to George J. Schilling Jr., 1200
Centre St., who was struck in February 2005 around 10:30 a.m. near
Catawissa Road and Centre Street after leaving the Gay Store, a 5-and-10-cent
store. Yenchick was killed in March 2006 while walking west on the
edge of Centre Street (Route 54) near the backs of parked cars.
Radar also said the foot patrols could prevent loitering,
littering, vandalism, underage drinking and drug dealing.
Radar said the requirements for the grant money were
mandated by PennDOT.
“When you use any kind of grant money, you have
to follow the rules and back it up with paperwork,” Radar said.
“They are used to getting overtime with other state projects,
but this is different because it is so community-minded.”
Shenandoah Mayor Thomas O’Neill is also pushing
the program.
“It is putting money back into the borough,”
he said. Frackville, Mahanoy City, Ringtown and Girardville support
the program.
In other business:
• The annual Tidy Town contest will be held
the first week of August. All six communities will vie for the title
of cleanest downtown. Frackville won last year’s award.
• A preview of a sidewalk sweeper that US hopes
to purchase for use by all six communities was given. More information
on this service will be discussed during the next meeting scheduled
for August.
• The Upper Schuylkill Homecoming is being planned
for the upcoming Labor Day weekend, with each of the communities hosting
an activity. The event is centered around the Ashland ABA Mummers
Parade.
Commercials advertising the event will be shown in July
and August on Fox News, MSNBC and TNT and will have the potential
to reach 562,000 homes locally and in Wilkes-Barre, Harrisburg, Lehigh
County, Danville, Bloomsburg and Lancaster County.
© The REPUBLICAN & Herald
2007
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