MT. PENN BORO., Pa. \u2013 After more than an hour of discussion, the Mount Penn Borough Municipal Authority voted to move forward with litigation, escalating an already contentious dispute with the borough over who should oversee Mount Penn’s water system.<\/p>\n
In April, Mount Penn Borough Council voted to dissolve the municipal authority.<\/p>\n
The borough now wants to create a new authority after negotiations over a proposed sale and leaseback of Mount Penn’s water system broke down.<\/p>\n
“This\u00a0should\u00a0never\u00a0have\u00a0come\u00a0to\u00a0this\u00a0point,” said Joe Boyle, chairman of the municipal authority.<\/p>\n
The current water authority says the borough abandoned their negotiations and is now trying to replace the authority instead.<\/p>\n
“On\u00a0July\u00a010,\u00a0we\u00a0received\u00a0a\u00a0proposed\u00a0lease,\u00a0but\u00a0they\u00a0wanted\u00a0us\u00a0to\u00a0decide\u00a0by\u00a0July\u00a013.\u00a0Well,\u00a0it\u00a0doesn’t\u00a0give\u00a0us\u00a0and\u00a0or\u00a0legal\u00a0team\u00a0the\u00a0time\u00a0to\u00a0review,” Boyle said.\u00a0<\/p>\n
The borough maintains it negotiated in good faith and says the authority rejected an agreement that had been reached.<\/p>\n
“…We\u00a0thought\u00a0we\u00a0had\u00a0one,\u00a0and\u00a0it\u00a0clearly\u00a0wasn’t\u00a0there.\u00a0So\u00a0at\u00a0this\u00a0point,\u00a0we\u00a0don’t\u00a0believe\u00a0that\u00a0there’s\u00a0anything\u00a0to negotiate about because\u00a0it\u00a0seems\u00a0that\u00a0the\u00a0authority\u00a0is\u00a0not\u00a0going\u00a0to\u00a0be\u00a0a\u00a0partner\u00a0in\u00a0anything\u00a0that\u00a0we\u00a0can\u00a0accept,” said Borough Manager Hunter Ahrens.<\/p>\n
Boyle says he hopes they can return to negotiating with the council.<\/p>\n
\u201cThis\u00a0litigation\u00a0doesn’t\u00a0need\u00a0to\u00a0continue,\u201d he said. \u201cThe\u00a0water\u00a0authority\u00a0built\u00a0the\u00a0infrastructure. They’ve\u00a0maintained\u00a0it\u00a0for\u00a086\u00a0years, and\u00a0we\u00a0would\u00a0like\u00a0to\u00a0continue\u00a0to\u00a0do that.”<\/p>\n
Both sides say customers should not notice any disruption to their water service. The next chapter in this dispute is expected to play out in court, where a judge could ultimately determine who owns the water system.<\/p>\n","protected":false},"excerpt":{"rendered":"MT. PENN BORO., Pa. \u2013 After more than an hour of discussion, the Mount Penn Borough Municipal Authority…\n","protected":false},"author":2,"featured_media":250054,"comment_status":"","ping_status":"","sticky":false,"template":"","format":"standard","meta":{"footnotes":""},"categories":[11],"tags":[4752,106931,75322,128,130,129,73800],"class_list":["post-250053","post","type-post","status-publish","format-standard","has-post-thumbnail","category-reading","tag-litigation","tag-mount-penn-borough","tag-municipal-authority","tag-reading-city","tag-reading-city-headlines","tag-reading-city-news","tag-water-system"],"_links":{"self":[{"href":"https:\/\/www.newsbeep.com\/us-pa\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/posts\/250053","targetHints":{"allow":["GET"]}}],"collection":[{"href":"https:\/\/www.newsbeep.com\/us-pa\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/posts"}],"about":[{"href":"https:\/\/www.newsbeep.com\/us-pa\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/types\/post"}],"author":[{"embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/www.newsbeep.com\/us-pa\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/users\/2"}],"replies":[{"embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/www.newsbeep.com\/us-pa\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/comments?post=250053"}],"version-history":[{"count":0,"href":"https:\/\/www.newsbeep.com\/us-pa\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/posts\/250053\/revisions"}],"wp:featuredmedia":[{"embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/www.newsbeep.com\/us-pa\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/media\/250054"}],"wp:attachment":[{"href":"https:\/\/www.newsbeep.com\/us-pa\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/media?parent=250053"}],"wp:term":[{"taxonomy":"category","embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/www.newsbeep.com\/us-pa\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/categories?post=250053"},{"taxonomy":"post_tag","embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/www.newsbeep.com\/us-pa\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/tags?post=250053"}],"curies":[{"name":"wp","href":"https:\/\/api.w.org\/{rel}","templated":true}]}}