Jessup News Post - March 2009

Township Meeting :

The 4 March 2009 meeting dealt mainly with new equipment purchase and rental options, COG services, and SALDO options.

The bids for a new backhoe/loader were opened in the presence of the bidders. A used Case 580M was selected as it was much lower in price and satisfied all requirements.

The advantages of renting a gravel crusher and rental options were discussed.

The town will now conduct it's own building code inspection services under a contract with Building Code Inspectors instead of COG. This action will reduce fees to residents. COG will continue to enforce Sewage codes for the town.

Copies of the county SALDO were obtained last month. A Supervisor met with Bob Templeton to discuss town-county cooperation on use of the county SALDO. The discussion of SALDO options concluded that the town would use the county SALDO rather than form a planning commission and adopt their own. The county planning commission is considering inviting town representatives to working sessions on a quarterly basis.

An engineering company provided their plans for examining potential gas well pad sites in the township along Route 706.

The February NTC meeting was briefly discussed. The NTC was informed of our decision to not zone and interest in withdrawing from the controlling Intergovernmental Cooperation Agreement for Multi-Municipal Planning and Implementation (zoning). They indicated they would review the status of the agreement for the next meeting.

NTC Meeting ( at Choconut ) :

The 19 March 2009 NTC meeting was fairly brief. Bill Stewart noted that there was little current activity of interest to most members and suggested meeting bi-monthly instead of monthly. A majority of the township representatives showed a preference for quarterly meetings and that decision was made. The next meeting will be 18 June 2008 in Jessup.

Liberty Township announced that they had voted to not zone. Bruce Griffis confirmed that Jessup had voted to not zone; he also stated that no decision had been taken on SALDO.

The NTC 2008 Audit reports and the March 2009 Treasurer report were provided. The Treasurer report continues to show $59,639 balance in SALDO-Zoning Funds; this is unchanged since Carson Helfrich returned the funds in December 2008. Ms. Kublo asked whether the towns could use those funds for their own SALDO or other uses.

The answer was interesting. The residual funds are being reviewed to determine how much is DCED funding which must be returned to the State Treasury, and how much is from township matching funds. The matching funds would go back to the towns based on their initial contribution. The initial match contributions were set by a formula involving town revenue and size. The basic match was 70% DCED to 30% Town.

So, some funds may be due to Jessup and the NTC – DCED review should be followed.

I asked Bill Stewart what they had decided about changing the NTC Intergovernmental Cooperation Agreement, since he had taken that action at the February meeting. He deferred to Bob Templeton who informed us that he had consulted Carson Helfrich. According to Carson, the Agreement had never been signed by all the townships.

In other words, the Agreement had never been properly executed in the first place. Bill Stewart suggested any town that had signed and was concerned should rescind the agreement in a town meeting and inform the NTC. This is good advice, and we should take it.

The revelation that the key intergovernmental agreement was never properly executed is amazing. It is equally amazing that the NTC could not answer the question without recourse to Mr. Helfrich through Mr. Templeton.

It also raises the question whether either the Comprehensive Plan or the Zoning Ordinance were ever legally valid since they were put together under the auspices of a Joint Planning Committee which was not properly formed under the unexecuted (and invalid) Intergovernmental Cooperation Agrreement.

This interpretation of invalidity is consistent with Carson's letter of 13 January 2009, in which he states: “This zoning ordinance as now designed can be adopted by any of the NTC municipalities independent of adoption by the others.” Implicit is the need, under the MPC, for a town to form its own planning commission which then reviews the proposed ordinance as a template and adopts it as their own town ordinance.

I suggest Jessup rescind the “Agreement” and inform the NTC by letter that we rescind it, are not interested in a joint SALDO, and want reimbursement of the funds due us from the residual Zoning – SALDO funds balance.

A citizen suggested the NTC hold a public meeting to discuss gas pipeline routes crossing town borders, safety, and minimal land disruption issues. The ensuing discussion covered pipelines along road right-of-ways and who should be in the approval process since there are safety and setback issues as well as landowner property rights involved.

Some supervisors thought they should have supervisor-only meetings before letting the public in on their thinking. Ironically, it escaped them that a citizen raised the issue and much thoughtful discussion came from the citizens. It seems a missed opportunity to improve citizen-supervisor relations, although a better place for these discussions may be the proposed county gas committee.