Alley maintenance and paving requests in the City of Williamsport.

That was a discussion on an issue that is a hot topic, especially as more people use alleys with detached garages and there are times when vehicles must be moved during snowstorms along with being used as short cuts to avoid congestion or intersections.

“I get a lot of questions about that,” Councilman Randy Allison, a veteran councilman, said. “I do as well,” Council President Adam Yoder said, asking Scott Livermore, director of the city public works department, to explain for the public how that process works, if there are parties interested in exploring that.

“We have our own paver and keep it in-house,” Livermore said.

“When people call, we check some of the alleys,” he said. “We take into consideration the complaints that are coming in and we go out and assess the situation,” he said.

“We normally get those put on if I have enough cash flow in my liquid fuels,” he said.

It usually takes between $65,000 to $75,000 of the city crews doing just the alleys,” Livermore noted.

“So if a resident was interested in seeing if the city would pave the alley, how would they go about doing that?” Yoder asked.

Livermore said to “get in touch.” “Get on the website.”

“We would receive that through our emails,” Livermore said, adding that he will then give the notice to the streets personnel to go out and check the alley to see if it deems that it needs to be repaved, or rather it is patched just to get it through another couple years.”

“This goes way back when John Markley was at streets and parks,” Councilwoman Bonnie Katz, chair of the public works committee, said. “They never did the alleys,” she said. “And then out of consideration for some people they started to – like you said have extra money – and they would do the alleys.”

“It was never part of the projects,” she said. “Now, we all want our alleys done because most of us use our alleys.”

“With everything that is being done, most of the garages are on the alleys,” she said.

“It is amazing that within a short period of time it became a necessity at this point.” “All those years ago, that wasn’t on the agendas.”

Katz asked Allison if he recalled that, and Allison said, “Yes, I do.” “I think some of the places are more conducive to having the alleys paved then others that have less usage.”

“That was part of the process as well,” Allison said.

The 2025 street paving and repair list is out and a request was made by council that those 20 streets be listed on the city website.

Once the city gets with Glenn O. Hawbaker, the contractor, and gets their schedule, they will try to get a list out and put it on the city website.

“We are anticipating some time late (this month) and October like we normally do,” Livermore said. “We will work with Hawbaker and get that schedule so people are not inconvenienced with that.”