Two Muncy Township supervisors voted Wednesday to place a pause on any subdivision, stormwater, and land development plan process going before the board.

That would impact time-sensitive projects such as Bass Pro, targeted for the former Best Buy site, for example.

Supervisors Terri Lauchle, chair, and Denise Artley voted to approve “a temporary administrative hold on processing a subdivision, stormwater or land development submission,” which Supervisor Heath Ohnmeiss voted against.

“No, it’s illegal,” he said, when the call for the vote was taken.

Lauchle defended the two supervisors’ votes.

“This action was procedural in nature and does not constitute a denial, a reclassification, or determination on the merits,” she said.

The purpose of the “hold” is to confirm completeness of stormwater documentation, environmental review considerations, and proper classification under the township Subdivision and Land Development Ordinance (SALDO), she said.

Ambrose Heinz, an attorney for FAMVEST, the developer bringing Bass Pro here, said the subdivision referred to had received conditional approval in December, requiring only two signatures of the chair and vice chair of the board.

Heinz said the process is set forth in accordance with guidelines established by the Pennsylvania Municipalities Planning Code and he offered to give the board his assistance in any way to get this signed.

Additionally, a land development plan for the Bass Pro project — recently hand-delivered to Ohnmeiss, is unable to be located in the township office, Lauchle said.

“During the meeting it was noted that the referenced preliminary final land development plan was not formally before the board in a properly logged and accessible manner at that time,” she said.

“The document includes a final plan certification block requiring board approval and signatures,” she added. “The discussion concerned ensuring that all required materials were formally filed and procedurally complete prior to any action.”

Lycoming County Commissioner Scott Metzer, board chairman, also expressed his concern as he spoke about the risk of such delay in processing important and crucial documents.

He took those there on a trip back a few years to where the commissioners could see the demise happening at the former Lycoming Mall.

“We came here with a vision of growth,” he said. “We wanted jobs, we wanted to grow the tax base, not tax the same base,” he said.

Commissioners Marc Sortman and Mark Mussina were also in attendance.

To add more context, just before Metzger spoke, Scott Johnson, a realtor and president of the Muncy School District Board of Education went over a document, approved for release on the record by the district administration, listing assessment values of the mall property – which was in 2017 – $56.5 million. The millage rate that year was 14.75 mills. The revenue it would have generated was $833,820. Last year, the mall’s assessed value was $10.3 million, and the millage rate that year was 16.72 mills, with revenue it would have generated at $173,386, he said.

Johnson further observed how the difference between the two assessed values is $46.1 million. The school district has lost $660,434 in revenue on the mall property over time, he said.

He noted how FAMVEST should be “thanked and encouraged to develop.”

Metzger referenced Johnson’s figures for the record and also praised the commitment of the developer.

Not just affecting the township

“Costs are going up,” Metzger said. “You have to operate within your budget,” he said.

Actions taken by the board affect not only the township, but the entire county, he summarized.

“We were concerned about who was going to buy the property,” he said, having lost an enormous tax base down for the school district, the township, and for the county,” he said.

“The sewer rates, water rates – all are affected – because you have that burden put on those taxpayers who are still here,” he said.

“Thank God the Bush family is still here, or the Lycoming Crossings wouldn’t be there,” Metzger said. “We’d have nothing.”

Traveling far to shop

“We’d be traveling for everything,” he said, “for clothes, for groceries . . . whatever you would have to go get,” he said.

When the Williamsport/Lycoming Chamber of Commerce brought the idea to the commissioners “we wanted the best possible person to develop that mall,” he said. “We didn’t want it just sitting there being a place where the homeless could go, people could shoot up drugs – we cared about what was going to go there for the tax base and for the people down here,” he said, citing how it is a “beautiful township.”

“They (FAMVEST) came to us,” he said. “They have a proven record . . . they have a proven record in Loyalsock Township,” Metzger said, acknowledging Sortman’s years of interaction with the company when Sortman served for many years as a Loyalsock Township supervisor, including as its chairman.

No. 1 retailer

“They brought us Bass Pro,” Metzger said. “The number one retailer in the country,” he added. “That does not happen overnight,” he said. “When you are in rural America you have to compete,” he cautioned. “We are not San Diego. We are not New York City – it is harder to get developers to come here.”

FAMVEST informed the commissioners of a franchise that they could not get to go into State College because “it wasn’t enough population,” Metzger said.

“How are we going to get a big franchise to come here?” he asked, answering: “We have to compete, we have to put together a package to get them to come here, and we were competing with other areas to get Bass Pro to come here,” he said.

The developer of the Chick-fil-A has submitted a letter of credit reduction request – a non-voting discussion item.

In a non-voting discussion item, the developer of Chick-fil-A requested a partial reduction of the Chick-fil-A letter of credit in the amount of $473,990, based on completed stormwater improvements reflected in prior documentation, Lauchle said.

The total bonded improvements are about $1.2 million. If approved, about $779,315 would remain secured for unfinished work, she said.

Additional procedural clarification and confirmation were needed before the board would consider any reduction, she said.

Metzger cautioned the board on how when Chick-fil-A gets “held up, and Bass Pro gets held up, that developers have to get their work done on time and there are deadlines and there are fines.”

“If they don’t meet those, they will go elsewhere,” Metzger said, adding, “and we’d lose. Our kids lose as a community and we’d lose.”

No shortcuts and legal advice

“We are not telling you to take shortcuts,” Metzger said. “That’s not good government. We are telling you to do things on time. And when things get submitted, you have to be there at the door to receive them . . . that’s your responsibility as elected officials. It’s our responsibility,” he said.

“That is why we have solicitors who educate us on things that we do not understand, okay,” he said. “If you sit in that seat and think you know it all you don’t belong in that seat,” he said. “You have to ask questions and get educated.”

The county’s facing a lot of different challenges right now and “we are asking those questions to get the ships right on everything,” he noted. “We make decisions right or wrong, we are going to make decisions and we are going to make them for the best part of the community.”

“We have $5 million invested in that land over there as a lien holder,” Metzger said. “That is important to the county. We want the best possible success to go there – and Bass Pro is it.”

“That was off the charts when we got that to come here,” Metzger said. “We can’t jeopardize that. We can’t jeopardize the Bushes and the Alexanders (Blaise Alexander was in attendance and asked the board members if they were in favor of Chick-fil-A and Bass Pro) – the people who want to invest money here. There are only so many people in our county that are willing to do that and we have to take advantage of that.”

“So, it’s your responsibility, because it affects the entire county. That is all we are asking,” he said. “Do your homework and do it on time, thank you.”

Lauchle responds

“It has to do with administration, I know nobody wants to hear that but this is the way it operates,” Lauchle said.

“Good government is … you do not rush … you have to see the documentation,” Lauchle said.

“You have to know what it is that you are signing, and that is all that we are asking as the board and especially as the chair because if anything is signed and it is not kosher, it is not gone through the proper guidelines that you need to, that developers are supposed to, it does fall back on the township and the board,” she said.

In a gentle attempt at persuading Lauchle, Mussina told her to “lean on” legal minds with experience such as Heinz, and that it is OK to sometimes say, “I don’t know,” rather than push through with motions that may or may not be proper.

In terms of filling job roles needed in the township, Lauchle, to a question about who the temporary solicitor and acting solicitor are, said she has engaged the service of a firm from Hazleton, Slusser Law Firm, at a cost of $150-per-hour. The current solicitor remains Scott Williams with Perciballi and Williams, Williamsport, she said. Neither was present at the meeting.

Lauchle also said, to a question, that she would be speaking the following day with an individual, who was interested in the secretary-treasurer office position.