December 7, 2011

There was some friction between
supervisors and a member of the Birmingham Township Planning Commission when
supervisors announced they want to cut the size of the commission.

Getting into the dispute with
supervisors was Planning Commission member Debbie Hineman who took issue with
the board’s decision to reduce the commission’s number from seven to five
members.

Supervisors’ Chairman John
Conklin said he based his opinion to cut the size of the Planning Commission
and Recreation, Parks and Open Space Committee because there’s has been a lack
of activity over the late few years. He cited the fact that the Planning
Commission only met six times during 2011, calling it a “significant reduction
in activity from 2010 and 2011.”

He is not removing people from
the various volunteer committees, but is rather reducing them in size by
attrition, not replacing people when they resign or their terms expire.

Hineman — one of the people who
will not be reappointed to the Planning Commission when her term expires then
of this year —challenged the idea, saying that the supervisors are always
looking for volunteers but, by reducing committee sizes, they are turning away
volunteers. She also said Supervisor Al Bush had told her commission that it
would remain at seven.

The other person who will not
be reappointed to the commission is Scott Boorse, said Township Secretary Quina Nelling.

Conklin responded by saying the
board can always add more people to the various committees if the other people
are again needed, and that Bush was aware that the proposal would be to reduce
the size of the Planning
Commission to five.

Conklin proposed no
replacements for Planning Commission term expirations in 2011 and not replace
the two resignations for terms expiring in 2012 and 2014 in RPOS.

He said reducing the committee
sizes from seven to five would make it easier for those bodies to reach a
quorum.

Despite Hineman’s arguments,
Conklin and fellow Supervisor Bill Kirkpatrick vote for the proposal. Bush was
absent.

Other business

• Kirkpatrick said there have
been changes to the proposed upgrade of the Route 926 Bridge over the
Brandywine between Birmingham and Pocopson Townships. Improvements needed
because of roadway flooding have been on the books since at least 2003 and they
have changed once again.

The current plans are to raise
the bridge two feet and the approaches by four feet. Thee will also be
pedestrian and bicycle pathways four feet wide on either side of the new
bridge.

Kirkpatrick said construction
wouldn’t begin before 2012 or 2015.

• Police Chief Thomas Nelling,
in his monthly police report, said his department responded to 950 incidents in
November. There were nine criminal arrests and two residential burglaries. There
are three open cases.

Birmingham Township supervisors
are trying to get a jump on new EPA guidelines by spending $1,500 on a study of
the township’s wastewater treatment plant.

Supervisors John Conklin and
Bill Kirkpatrick voted during the Dec. 5 board meeting to authorize the study
to be conducted by URS, the company that operates the plant. Supervisor AL Bush
was absent.

Bringing the plant into
compliance of the new regulations could lead to an increase in user fees, but
how much of an increase or when it would happen are undetermined. About 400
township households are currently connected to the plant. The user fee is $125
per quarter, according to township secretary Quina Nelling.

Conklin called the need for the
study “another unfunded mandate.”

Kirkpatrick said the study is
just the first phase in bringing the plant into compliance with regard to the
nitrogen content of treated wastewater discharged into streams. Other studies
would follow. Then the plant would have to be upgraded.

“That will require a physical
change to the plant and probably an increase to the asset,” he said.

The current discharge would
have to be treated again, he said, and then be re-aerated so there would be
adequate oxygen in the treated wastewater.

Kirkpatrick said the various
studies have be finished by the beginning of 2013 and construction finished by
2015.

“While it’s not right around
the corner, with the studies and construction, we have to get going,” he said.

He was asked whether the
changes would lead to an increase in user fees.

“One of the highest
consumptions of energy at the plant are the blowers. We have four blowers there
[and] usually one or two are blowing all the time. So, from an asset
standpoint, we might have to add to the asset. I suspect we’ll have to put
another tank in and if we have operating costs they’re going to go against
whatever the charges are, so it’s highly likely that this will have an impact
on the sewer fees,” Kirkpatrick said.

He added that he has no idea at
this time what the change in rate might be, but thinks it would be “relatively
modest.”

The Pennsylvania Department of
Transportation has deployed a new security hologram that makes it easier to
spot fake drivers’ licenses and identification cards. Pennsylvania is the first
state in the nation to use this enhanced security feature.

“A driver’s license or
identification card has always been a trusted source for establishing a
person’s true identity,” said PennDOT Secretary Barry J. Schoch [in a press
release]. “We are steadfast in our resolve to combat counterfeit forms of
identification, which ultimately jeopardize lives and hold great potential for
harm to our national security.”

The new hologram suppresses the
“rainbow” colors normally associated with holographic images. The result
is a hologram that appears to switch between white and black as the image is
moved. Also, because the new image is of a much higher resolution, it is
clearly visible in bright, moderate and even low-light environments.

This state-of-the-art
technology is added to an array of security features including a holographic
overlay of county names and keystone outlines already embedded in current
license and ID cards.

For more information and to see
an example of the new security feature, visit PennDOT’s Driver and Vehicle
Services website at www.dmv.state.pa.us
and click on Identity/Security.