During the Supervisors Meeting in Manor Township last night, a motion was passed to use $10,000 of their Act 13 funds toward assisting Manor Township Volunteer Fire Company after their recent purchase of a truck from Texas.
by KP Intern Kyle Predmore
A motion was passed during the Manor Township Supervisors meeting last night to hire Steven Guelich as a part-time officer, pending he passes his MPOETC exam.
“He graduated from IUP Police Academy on the 15th,” Manor Township Police Chief Eric Petrosky said. “I halve talked to him several times and I think he’s going to be a good fit for Manor Township. Now he has to take a MPOETC exam. Once you pass that, you can be a police officer.”
Guelich is scheduled to take the exam July 24.
In other action, the Federal Emergency Management Agency (FEMA) has responded to Governor Tom Wolf and his request for aid following heavy rains a few months ago and decided to not approve any funding to the area.
“After heavy rains in the Spring, multiple counties and townships suffered landslides, including us,” Chairman Don Palmer said. “We did a cumulative collection of data and found out how much damage there was state wide. At that point, Governor Wolf submitted it to FEMA for approval to try to get federal help. FEMA came back and they decided they are not going to approve any of the aid, and claimed the damage was due to several consecutive events instead of one continuous event.
They are saying that the rain events that caused the landslide happened on different days, where the way the law is written, for FEMA money to be allowed to be dispersed, it has to be one continuous event from start to finish. I think there was enough damage around that if its pursued properly, I think they can convince FEMA to change their minds”
The Wolf Administration did appeal the decision, but the decision of the appeal will not be known for “quite some time,” Palmer said. “As it stands, there will not be any money coming in the way of aid.”
Finally, Manor Township Fire Company recently purchased a new squad truck.
“Manor Township Volunteer Fire Company recently purchased a squad out of Texas,” Tag Heckler said. “We’ve received our Act-13 money and I would like to take $10,000 to help pay for it. It was something they really needed. It’s a really nice piece of equipment.”
When questioned by members in attendance, Palmer explained Act-13 “is the gas mineral extraction fees from the gas wells. We received almost $60,0000 this year, a 7% increase from last year. It’s a yearly fee that we receive. It is good for 15 years and we have 9 years left that we will still continue to receive on that.”
The motion to use $10,000 directly toward debt reduction on the new truck and for payments be made directly to the bank was passed.