Township leery of private roads on public money

DINGMAN — The developers of Rock Hill Estates, a new 200-home subdivision on State Route 739, have queried the Dingman Township Supervisors about dedicating, ceding to Dingman, one of their proposed new roads. Rock Hill is still in the early stages of development and has no finished homes. Supervisors Chairman Tom Mincer wasn’t having any of it. “We don’t take roads in private developments and have them dedicated as township roads. The township doesn’t take on an expensive proposition like this which will only benefit a small number of people. Only the homeowners in Rock Hill would benefit from this because we would have to maintain it like any other town road,” he said. Solicitor John Klemeyer added, “We’re not interested in making subdivision roads public roads.” “We told Rock Hill they can submit their request, but we may not take it,” Mincer added. Marvin Eversdyke, director of Support Services at Delaware Valley School District had two matters before the Dingman Township Supervisors. The first was an 1,100 square foot storage room addition to the Middle School gymnasium on State Route 739 which is to be used for athletic equipment storage. “This addition won’t add any parking spaces or affect storm water runoff. All necessary permits have been filed,” said Mincer. Approval was granted. Construction of the storage room addition is expected to begin when school ends in a few weeks. The second was construction of a water treatment facility which will contain an indoor pump house and a 24,000 gallon storage tank which will connect all three campus buildings. The work is to alleviate problems the school was having with potable water supplies. There will also be a fire hydrant which will be a supplemental water supply for the fire department. Currently the fire department has to draw water from the pond located on the school grounds. The was also approved. In other business Joe Cupcha of Pike County Emergency Medical Services reported they now have a second unit up and running. Cupcha said, “We recently had two calls at one time and the second unit was needed. We had 82 calls last month that we responded to. We seem to have the most calls on Mondays, Wednesdays and Fridays so that’s when we’ll have the second unit manned.” Dingman Township Fire Chief Bill Mikulak reported that emergency calls are down and the numbers were down last month. Their last Sunday fundraising breakfast had a good turn out but their bingo nights have less people than usual. “Bingo gets a lot of senior citizens and with the high price of gas they can’t afford to buy both gas and food,” said Mikulak. Last month a trailer fire in Lake Adventure appeared to be a lightning hit. The Pennsylvania State Police agreed with this, “but we called the fire marshal to be on the safe side.” Mikulak said. Township Roadmaster Jim Snyder asked Mincer if a new truck for winter road maintenance could be purchased. Snyder said one truck is currently up for sale and there are some problems with the others. Mincer asked Snyder to get some proposals and present them to the board.