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County projects may be broadcast

To showcase Lycoming County’s current and future developments, the county commissioners are expected to approve an agreement not to exceed $20,000 with Pioneer Sports Production Thursday.

The county will work with the Williamsport-based production company to create a series of 20 videos from late October to June for Lycoming County Area Television, or LCAT-75, said William Kelly, county planning department deputy director.

Pioneer Sports Production will provide videography, editing and production services.

The videos will feature a plethora of topics, including a mini-series on the county’s newly unveiled, proposed 20-year transportation plan in November, as part of the public comment period, said county Transportation Planner Mark Murawski.

Kelly called the videos a “visual and direct” way for residents to become informed and engaged. The videos will also stream online for accessibility.

Other topics include single-stream recycling, innovations at the county landfill, brownfields outreach, the flood-plain restoration project and more.

Additionally, the county commissioners’ meetings would be broadcast.

While the county is footing the bill, some of the cost would be covered by grants, although Kelly couldn’t give a specific number Tuesday. The remaining part of the bill would be paid for through general revenue funds, which could be taxpayer dollars or gas impact fee funds, he said.

Some of the projects have funds set aside that could be used for these videos. The brownfields grant requires public outreach, so some of those funds would go toward that video, and the landfill’s revenue may be used for its videos.

“It’s fair to say (videos about the landfill) should be paid for by revenues from the landfill,” Kelly said.

Pioneer Sports Production is LCAT’s third-party administrator, so it manages LCAT on behalf of its members, Kelly said. The cost to do online streaming was part of the original contract of less than $25,000 between the LCAT board and the company, so there will be no additional costs added on.

The board is comprised of municipalities which have signed a franchise agreement with Comcast to provide Comcast cable services to part or all of their municipalities, including Williamsport, Old Lycoming Township, Loyalsock Township, Montoursville Borough, South Williamsport Borough, Fairfield Township, Armstrong Township, Lycoming County and the Williamsport/Lycoming Chamber of Commerce.

The commissioners may also approve a Community Development Block Grant budget revision of 2010 funds. The Beaver Lake Sewage Treatment Plant was previously damaged in flooding, and the county requested over $73,000 of funds to go toward that project. However, the Pennsylvania Department of Community and Economic Development said that project was not eligible based on certain criteria, said Kristin McLaughlin, SEDA-COG Community Development project coordinator.

To reapply for those funds, SEDA-COG would have to do a survey encompassing all those residents, not just the full-time residents. That process, along with the environmental review, would hold up the Lycoming County Water and Sewer Authority’s timeline and possibly other funding’s time constraints, McLaughlin said. Plus, that project may be rejected again after those efforts, she said.

McLaughlin recommends moving those 2010 funds to the DuBoistown sanitary sewer lateral repair project as a holding place while evaluations are done on what the final project should be.

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