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As the second bundle of the county's bridge bundling program gets under way, the Lycoming County Commissioners stressed the program as an example of communities working together to get work done that would be financially out of reach otherwise.
"We are coming together as a community to help each other out with the $5 that we're paying the debt service on the PIB (Pennsylvania Infrastructure Bank) loan," said Commissioner Rick Mirabito.
The fee is attached to vehicle registrations collected by the state and comes back to the county, earmarked for bridge repair and replacement. A certain amount of funding comes from individual municipalities.
Following the recent kick-off of the second bundle of the county's bridge bundling program, two commissioners shared that they had received calls from residents questioning why they needed to pay the $5 fee because they lived in a municipality where no bridges were being fixed.
"They wish we would end the $5 fee...one person said, 'We're not getting a bridge fixed in our township, so why should I pay it,'" Mirabito said.
"You know, everything goes around, including bridges that deteriorate, and eventually there'll be a bridge probably in every municipality in this county that'll get repaired," he added.
Commissioner Tony Mussare also shared that a constituent had questioned him about the fee, but once she realized that 100% of the monies was going to rebuild bridges, she understood the benefits.
"That's the way it was right from the beginning...they questioned it, argued and then once you explained it, it was like, that's probably the best tax we ever had," Mussare said.
One municipality, Franklin Township, has a population of about 900 and a bridge that needed to be repaired, at an estimated cost of $340,000. Because the program is set up so that participating municipalities only pay 20% of the costs of the project, the township is able to do the bridge replacement for $17,000, according to Austin Daily, the county's transportation planner.
In his update on the bridge bundling project, Daily told the commissioners at their weekly meeting that the work on the Franklin Township bridge kicked off at the beginning of the month and the bridge is expected to be reopened by the end of May.
Not only does the bridge bundling program provide lower costs to municipalities, but it also takes the burden of managing a construction project of that magnitude away from local officials.
"The work of managing the project is very important. The county staff, Bassett Engineering, PennDot, that would fall on the shoulders of supervisors and municipalities who are serving almost as volunteers and to manage a construction project like that is a lot," Mirabito said.
Acquiring financing for a large project might also be beyond the scope of a small community on its own, Mirabito pointed out.
"I hope that people in the community will realize that that's what the word community means, right? It means that we help each other out," Mirabito said.
Daily also noted that municipalities that are not participating in the current bridge bunding projects have been inquiring about how to become involved.
In other actions, the commissioners approved the following expenditures:
• A change order with RLS Construction Group for the construction of the Health and Wellness Center, $1,300.
• The purchase of landfill tarps from AAA Tarps, $13,958.
• The purchase of Carbonate Scale Control for Resource Management Services from General Products & Supply, Inc., $22,572.
• A change order with Fairbank Scales for the Landfill Scale System Rebuild Project, $33,883.
• The purchase of a replacement control panel for CAT generator for Resource Management Services from Cleveland Brother Equipment Company, Inc., $30,055.
• A change order with Skyhook, Inc., for work on the radio tower, including labor, $28,300.
• A change order with Larson Design Group for work done at the Timber Run Industrial Park access driveway, extending the contract until the end of July, $4,877 for design work.
All of the expenditures above were 2022 budgeted items.
The commissioners also approved agreements with Citizens and Northern Bank Wealth Management for an updated fee schedule on accounts and a subrecipient agreement with Old Lycoming Township for a clean water action plan grant for the Bottle Run stream restoration project.
They also approved the Municipal Waste Planning Grant project with the Department of Environmental Protection. It was noted that this is updated every 10 years.
The next commissioners meeting will be at 10 a.m. April 28 at the commissioners' board room, first floor Executive Plaza, 330 Pine St.