The Kittanning street sweeper will remain idle during April while Council decides on revising sweeping procedures and schedules.
The schedule for the sweeping of streets came under fire at the April meeting of Kittanning Borough Council.
Council President Kim Chiesa brought up concerns of residents.
“I’ve had a lot of complaints about our hours and waking people up in the middle of the night,” she told Council. “Perhaps our Street Committee and Codes could get together and discuss alternatives and perhaps adjust times.”
Councilwoman Betsy Wilt suggested doing it in the daytime when cars are already moved and people are at work.
“That’s what I thought,” Chiesa replied. “It’s frustrated when it is three o’clock in the morning.”
Chiesa told Council to consider it and asked Street Superintendent Jim Mechling to also be a part of the discussion and have suggestions for the May meeting.
Street sweeping was scheduled to begin on April 15. Police Chief Bruce Mathews suggested holding off until the schedule and procedure could be evaluated.
“Maybe it’s time to evaluate it. It has been in place for 25-plus years,” Mathews said. “It’s not fair to the people when we start and stop. They don’t know what’s going on. Sometimes the personnel and manpower have not been there to run (the street sweeper) or it has been down for three or four weeks. If the sweeper doesn’t run, we don’t write tickets. So we don’t write tickets for three weeks because there was a problem with manpower or the sweeper was broken down, then all of a sudden we start up again and we write several books of tickets because people didn’t move their vehicle. It’s not fair to the people. So I am suggesting is that before we start this year, we review the policy so we don’t have to make additional changes.”
Councilman Joe Kiehlmeier asked if it was necessary to run the sweeper every week. Mechling said that at the beginning of the season for approximately two months, it is necessary to operate it every week as well as during the fall season.
Council will make the final determination at its May meeting on a sweeping schedule.