NEW BETHLEHEM \u2013 Support from the local J.M. Smucker peanut butter factory in New Bethlehem will bring about an expedited schedule for October\u2019s bridge replacement project along Penn Street.<\/p>\n
At Tuesday evening\u2019s meeting of New Bethlehem Borough Council, members approved a letter of intent with the J.M. Smucker Co. relating to the replacement of the Penn Street bridge over Leasure Run, which is utilized daily by tractor trailer trucks coming to and from the local factory.<\/p>\n
With work on the bridge originally scheduled to begin Oct. 12, council members were confronted with a decision at the Sept. 15 meeting, on whether to stick with the regular timeframe for the project, or to approve a $95,000 additional cost to expedite the work into a 10-day schedule.<\/p>\n
Ed Evans, representing Curry and Kepple, the contractors for the replacement project, said that he needed to know whether to plan for the regular schedule, or to make the changes necessary to fast-track the bridge project, which would involve bringing on a second crew to work nearly around the clock.<\/p>\n
Councilman Ed Goth said he was not in favor of the borough spending taxpayer money to shorten the timeframe for the bridge work, noting that the borough faces several other costly projects and purchases in the near future.<\/p>\n
However, Goth and the other council members in attendance \u2014 president Scott Barrett, Brian Fox and Shannon Johnson \u2014 agreed in the end to move forward with the change order and expedited schedule, due to an offer from Smuckers to pay for the extra costs.<\/p>\n
According to officials, the manufacturer had stepped up to offer 50 percent of the additional $95,000 cost up front, and the remaining 50 percent once the work is completed in the 10-day timeframe.<\/p>\n
Mayor Gordon Barrows said the offer was made in an email from the company, but was not in s formal written letter.<\/p>\n
Goth\u2019s motion to proceed was contingent on a written agreement with the company to cover the added costs.<\/p>\n
\u201cWe didn\u2019t want to see any taxpayers impacted,\u201d Barrows said, noting that with support from Smuckers, there will be no additional burden to local taxpayers.<\/p>\n
With the expedited timeframe approved, Evans asked that the start-date for the project be pushed back from October. 12 to October. 19 in order for his company to make all the necessary preparations. Borough officials agreed, as long as the new schedule works for Smuckers.<\/p>\n
In related business on Tuesday, the council also approved an intergovernmental services agreement with Redbank Township (Clarion County) for use of the township\u2019s Brinker Street during the bridge project.<\/p>\n
The agreement will allow McCauley Trucking vehicles to temporarily use Brinker Street, located next to the Subway restaurant, during the project.<\/p>\n
\u201cBefore-and-after inspections will document any truck-related damage for which the borough would be responsible,\u201d Barrows said following the meeting.<\/p>\n","protected":false},"excerpt":{"rendered":"NEW BETHLEHEM \u2013 Support from the local J.M. Smucker peanut butter factory in New Bethlehem will bring about…\n","protected":false},"author":2,"featured_media":288132,"comment_status":"","ping_status":"","sticky":false,"template":"","format":"standard","meta":{"footnotes":""},"categories":[14],"tags":[153,155,154,21450,117926],"class_list":["post-288131","post","type-post","status-publish","format-standard","has-post-thumbnail","category-bethlehem","tag-bethlehem","tag-bethlehem-headlines","tag-bethlehem-news","tag-bridge","tag-the-j-m-smucker-company"],"_links":{"self":[{"href":"https:\/\/www.newsbeep.com\/us-pa\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/posts\/288131","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=288131"}],"version-history":[{"count":0,"href":"https:\/\/www.newsbeep.com\/us-pa\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/posts\/288131\/revisions"}],"wp:featuredmedia":[{"embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/www.newsbeep.com\/us-pa\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/media\/288132"}],"wp:attachment":[{"href":"https:\/\/www.newsbeep.com\/us-pa\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/media?parent=288131"}],"wp:term":[{"taxonomy":"category","embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/www.newsbeep.com\/us-pa\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/categories?post=288131"},{"taxonomy":"post_tag","embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/www.newsbeep.com\/us-pa\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/tags?post=288131"}],"curies":[{"name":"wp","href":"https:\/\/api.w.org\/{rel}","templated":true}]}}