A $1.2 Million Borrowing and Fire Hall in Flux

One of the nice things about those long summer nights, combined with Douglass supervisors meetings that rarely last more than an hour, is that you can run out after the meeting and get photos of some of the objects of discussion.

Bingo also continues to be held at the social hall on Route 73.

Chief among these last night was the fall-out from the closure of the Gilbertsville Fire Co. social hall, which came up during the solicitor's report.

The gist of it seems to be that games of chance operating at the social hall may have been a violation of the liquor license, and since the township was the de-facto property owner, that made the township liable for the violations.

The social hall was closed, except for charitable fund-raising events like Bike Night on Aug. 19 and the two-day craft show after Thanksgiving.

We'll have a little more on that in subsequent reports in The Mercury when we have a bit more information.

Also of interest was not only the pending expansion of Gilbertsville animal Hospital, which won preliminary support from the supervisors, but also a proposed use for the intersection of Route 100 and Jackson Road.

The property owners received a positive reception for their zoning variance requests from the supervisors in exchange for committing to working with them on the design of the building.

Proposed Mooney self-storage facility.

Chairman Anthony Kuklinski described the Wawa near that intersection as "rural, but not," and said "the township does not want any big yellow boxes."

Not the bury the lead or anything, but the supervisors also voted unanimously to borrow just under $1.2 to pay for the new township public works building now taking shape on Municipal drive.

The new public works building is taking shape.

Bob Dries, who is overseeing the construction, said the floor slab has been poured and walls are going up on the new facility.

He said the roof joists should be in position shortly and that some utilities have already been put in position.

The township broke ground on the new building on a rainy day in May and Dries said work is progressing quickly enough that "we should have everything under roof by winter."

That's about it for last night's meeting. Here are the Tweets.