Salt for the wound, little for the roads

MILFORD — Cargill Salt has been supplying Milford Township with winter salt for over 20 years and sent a letter to the township which was read by township secretary Viola Canouse, “...we are cancelling salt contracts to municipalities and are only supplying winter salt for our state contracts.” Cargill, Inc., located in upstate N.Y., is an international provider of food, agricultural and risk management products with over 158,000 employees in 66 countries. They provide commonly used “white” rock salt for road de-icing. It is used to melt snow and ice on roadways, parking lots, and bridges. Milford Township Supervisors Chairman Gary Williams said, “We have 25 tons of salt on hand and I have 3 loads coming from American Salt of Wilkes-Barre.” Canouse remarked, “We will now have to pay over $60 a ton which is $7 a ton higher than our contract with Cargill.” In other business, Canouse reported, “The Pike County Commissioners are changing the “tax bill notices” from March 15 to March 1 which will bring in tax money sooner.” Williams told the supervisors, “We are going to use our 2004 Ford F450 as a back-up truck and get rid of our old 1988 truck. We are looking to get a new medium duty 19,500-lb. gross vehicle weight truck. I have bids submitted by Sherwood Chevrolet for a C55 diesel powered truck, with a 10 foot plow and an automatic transmission at $80,086. I also have a bid from Penske GMC for an identical truck right down to the exact same vehicle weight and it will cost $83,211 from them. Delivery time from either dealership is four to five months.” The supervisors voted to add the Pike County Courier to their list of official newspapers for legal notice advertising.