County Aid Awarded to 14 Municipalities

by Jonathan Weaver

More than a dozen Armstrong County communities received aid for street projects yesterday.

Armstrong County Commissioners awarded more than $150,000 to 14 different municipalities throughout the county.

Project Manager Tom Swisher explained the$152,000 being disbursed is part of the annual liquid fuels allocation. Funding was awarded in July, the beginning of the fiscal year.

Nearly two dozen municipalities applied for more than $286,000 in County aid by Easter.

“We review the applications once they come in, make sure they meet PennDOT standards and we have a ranking system we’ve adopted over the years, Swisher said.

“We budgeted $100,000 this year for this program, and the commissioners decided to give a bit more.”

Commissioner Chair Pat Fabian said the new trio of commissioners adopted a new policy this year to award funding to municipalities who have not received an equal amount of funding during the past five years.

“We tried to change the criteria and not play favorites. We had several new applicants this year,” Commissioner Fabian said. “We wanted to make sure every municipality is getting their fair share.”

For example, Commissioner Fabian said Atwood Borough never applied before, so the small municipality received the maximum $15,000 for oil and chipping roadways.

“It brought a lot of communities back to a level playing field,” Swisher added.

Commissioners are not certain how they will run the aid system next year.

Half of the municipalities funded this year received $15,000 for road repairs, including Dayton and Ford City Boroughs and Parks and West Franklin Townships.

Swisher wrote letters to all applicants – from the municipalities that received $15,000 to Elderton which received more than $2,100 and those who were not funded.

In Ford City, the $15,000 allocation will go toward paving 6th Avenue Extension and Cypress Alley between 14th Street and 16th Street.

Ford City Borough Council President Carol Fenyes was pleased to hear the news yesterday evening.

“It’s wonderful! I think it’s a vote of confidence from the commissioners that we’re proceeding to improve the condition of our streets in town,” Fenyes said. “I’m so grateful.”

Councilwoman Beth Bowser echoed her delight.

Bids for Ford City’s paving project along the 25 mile-per-hour roadway will be opened later this month.

Since People’s Gas officials are also planning water line replacement, a paving schedule has not been finalized.

Manor Township also received more than $2,600 in funding for the repair/replacement of drainage pipes along Hawk Hollow Road.

Commissioner Fabian – a former Manor Township supervisor – complimented current supervisors for requesting about $8,000 in County aid during the past five years.

“They only asked for what they needed,” Fabian said.

Municipal application requests also needed to have estimates from the Pennsylvania Department of Transportation (PennDOT), independent contractors or engineers, as well as the total cost to the project.

Planning and Development usually also traverse each roadway proposed, but were comfortable with this year’s requests because of PennDOT estimates.

In March, it was announced that Pennsylvania’s Act 89 permitted PennDOT to distribute more than $4.3 million in liquid fuels funds to 45 Armstrong County municipalities as well.

Cowanshannock Township received the largest allocation – more than $294,000 – based on nearly 80 miles of roads.

The County has awarded liquid fuels aid since 2009.

More than $140,000 in liquid fuels allocations were awarded to more than a dozen municipalities last year as well, including some municipalities that received aid this year (such as Bethel Township, Elderton Borough, and Plumcreek Township).

The remainder of the liquid fuels funds will be used for County projects.

No Comments

No comments yet.

RSS feed for comments on this post.

Leave a comment

You must be logged in to post a comment.