BY SUSAN BRYANT

sbryant@tnonline.com

The walking trail connection to Weisenberg Elementary School and Waste Management easement agreement and bid package was discussed at the Feb. 12 Weisenberg supervisors’ meeting.

Township Manager Brian Carl began the conversation.

“We still have two grants out there, one is the PennDOT multimodal grant, and one is the Local Share Account grant for that connection piece to the elementary school and for our park down by Palram Americas,” he reported to the board. “We (Roadmaster Tony Werley, Engineer Stan Wojciechowski, and Carl) met with Waste Management again and they seem OK with everything we want to do.

“Since we have the community center, Tony’s shop addition and the other pavilion. I have enough grant money there to pay someone to do this little connection point.”

Carl then asked the board if Barry Isett and Associates could draft some drawings.

“It’s probably going to be $10,000 to $14,000 or so for their work and then we’ll just bid it out,” Carl said. “Worst case scenario, the bids come back high, and we go to Plan B and do it ourselves.

“We have money - $130,000 multimodal money and $20,000 plus of LSA money, so it should be enough to cover it

“If you’re OK, we’ll cut Stan (Wojciechowski) loose on getting a survey done, and getting a basic design done.”

Wojciechowski offered his comments.

“I don’t even know if we’re going to need to do a survey,” he said.

After further discussion, a motion was made for Barry Isett and Associates to draw up the plans for the walking trail and prepare the bid package.

The motion carried.

Under new business, supervisors discussed the intergovernmental agreement for First Fire Commission, the township’s agreement to have Upper Macungie Township perform their commercial fire inspections.

Carl said the fee is $66 an hour and the rate will be reviewed yearly. Any increase in the hourly rate would be by mutual agreement.

Supervisors approved the agreement.

Carl also provided an update on the community center.

“We did get the first $250,000 from a private donor,” he said. The other $750,000 is getting wired to us from the donor.

“We have the donation account, and the agreement is there for you to sign.

“I received a proposal from Barry Isett and from Keystone Consulting Engineers for the land development.

“Both are within a few $100 of each other.

“Essentially, it’s $65,000 to develop the land development plan.”

Carl then explained he wanted to save some money on the land development because he would like to stretch the building out a few more feet, if he can.

“Right now, we’re at 120 feet,” he said. “I would like to get it up to 140 feet, maybe 150 feet in length.

“Right now my kids are playing soccer, and I am going to a lot of indoor facilities and seeing it would be nice to have a little bit more larger area that these kids could do something on.”

Supervisor Chairwoman Linda Gorgas responded.

“If we’re going to do it, we might as well do it right,” she said.

Carl said regardless of the size, it’s going to be a usable space, but he would like to get it a little bit bigger.

“I found a vendor that pretty much specializes in this and even takes care of some of the building design work,” he stated. “COSTARS (the Commonwealth of Pennsylvania’s cooperative purchasing program), seems to do all the facilities for St. Luke’s, and Lehigh Valley.

“I am waiting for some other pricing to come back. Let me get some more information.”

After further discussion, the board approved a motion for Carl and Wojciechowski to continue working on the preliminary plan design, conduct the survey and septic testing for the proposed community center.

After the motion was approved, Supervisor Richard Bleiler asked Carl if he had received any feedback on uses of similar buildings and what they should be looking to put in the work.

“I reached out to this company that has done 500 of these buildings, all over, all sports facilities,” Carl said. “They are going to give me some names so I can go and talk to the people and ask them what they like, what would you change, even operation wise.

“The more I think about this, I think another hidden benefit to this is, if we would have all the residents have a little swipe card, like a badge card to get in through a card reader, we could charge them maybe $10 a year or something.”

Carl said he spoke to one of the township residents who goes to the Kempton Community Center to play pickleball and that fee is around $25 a year.

“If we would come up with a card system, it would give access to the building, maybe from 8 a.m. to 8 p.m.,” Carl said. “Maybe those are the hours that it’s open and it could be good for the entire immediate family and one guest and, then in the evenings, maybe from 6 p.m. to 8 p.m.

“You could rent the turf section out to soccer, lacrosse, or area sports teams to kind of get some money.

“By the same token, maybe we could talk to Waste Management, and they put a little thing in there where you take your same card and go up and swipe it.

“Maybe you get a green light when you go to the dump. If you get a red light, you don’t take your garbage.”

Gorgas responded.

“Not a bad idea,” she said.

Carl then explained the plan for the proposed community center.

“It calls for a turf area, two pickleball courts, which would be on a multipurpose area, that could get wheeled out; a volleyball net which could get wheeled in and wheeled out; basketball hoops that could fold down; and then there’s a walking and jogging track around there,” he said. “There are two bathrooms and then there’s a meeting room, for Girl Scouts and Boy Scouts, for example.

“Depending on the size of that room, you could probably also rent that out.”

Carl concluded by saying this is a “pretty unique opportunity” because of the donation the township received.

“There’s going to be a learning curve here for sure.”