BY SUSAN BRYANT

sbryant@tnonline.com

Lowhill supervisors were given updates on the status of warehouse litigation and the Narris Road project during their March 14 meeting.

Solicitor David Brooman, with High Swartz LLP, provided the board with an update on where all the litigation stands.

“The first case is the CRG Betz Court case,” he said. “It is actually two cases.

“One is a mandamus case, and one is a land use appeal.

“The land use appeal has been stayed by Judge Thomas Gaffrey, largely because he granted a parameter of judgment to CRG in the mandamus action and that now has been appealed to the Commonwealth Court.

“It has been both appealed and briefed.”

Brooman said oral argument on the Betz Court land use appeal will be heard May 6.

“Core5 at Valley Commerce, that’s before Judge Michelle Varricchio,” he said.

“This is the former Trammel Crow site where preliminary approval was granted, and final approval was denied.

“That case has also been fully briefed as of Jan. 5 and is awaiting a decision.

“Then there’s Core5 on Kernsville Road. It’s referred to several different ways, including at Route 100.

“That’s before Judge Varricchio. She held a little trial regarding the mandamus action.

“I think it was December (2023) and that has been fully briefed.

“Fitzpatrick, Lentz and Bubba filed its brief Feb. 16. We filed our brief March 1. And we’re waiting for a decision.

Brooman said the Department of Environment Protection issued a second technical deficiency letter for this site.

“It’s still under technical review and there will be additional public comments,” he noted.

Brooman said the next one is also Core5 on the same site.

“This is the deemed approval case that brought two deemed approvals and also the mandamus,” Brooman said. “Judge Varricchio saw the connection between the two and she basically has stated that.

“And then lastly is the right-to-know appeal filed by CRG for documents provided to them by Jill Seymour, township secretary, and that, too, went to a little trial and has been fully briefed and is waiting a decision from Judge Varricchio.”

Brooman said he is monitoring all the cases and will be arguing the Commonwealth case because the insurance company’s no longer representing the township in that case.

Brooman explained why he is handling the Commonwealth case.

“I haven’t looked at the coverage letter but I will,” Brooman said.

“Their (insurance company) position is they handle the appeal taken from any decision or any suit against the township.

“If they win, they will defend up in the Commonwealth Court.

“In other words, they defend the position, but if they lose, they bail out. That’s the way it is in all these cases.

“It is just in the Betz Court case, they have backed out.

“All the others are still being handled 100 percent by the insurance company.”

In other matters, Township engineer Ryan Christman said he had a preconstruction meeting with Grace Industries on March 12 regarding Narris Road.

“They want to get in there by the end of the month to start,” he stated. “They want to go in and cut out the bad section, so to speak, that’s still in the pavement, make a benched area there that they can work from, and it will be safer for the crane guy.

“That may take a week. They will get that all set up and ready, and by then the beams should be ready to be delivered and they’ll start driving the beams.”

Supervisor George “Buddy” Wessner asked Christman if they were going to drive all the beams.

“Yes,” Christman responded. “They’re going to keep going while they’re waiting for the precast panels.

“It should time out close by the time they’re done with that, within a few days, I would imagine.

“They’re talking about maybe getting the panels moved up a little bit. They would still be there but the crane can leave.

“They can lift the panels in with the excavator, so that eliminates another guy.”

Christman said he had only 30 days in the contract, and they asked if we could just extend that another 30 days.

“Because they can only put one of those beams in, maybe 1-1/2 of them a day, and there’s 22 beams, so that’s going to take 22 days just to do that.

“I don’t think we have a choice. I guess officially he wanted to make sure that we were OK with it and that I can give him a change order to extend the contract time for 30 days.

“It really won’t change it that much. We’re still probably looking at the end of May at worst, I think.”

Brooman asked Christman the consequence of going over 30 days.

“Nothing really,” Christman answered.

Brooman said his suggestion would be to come back to me after 30 days and we’ll talk about it because they have a contract.

“When was the last time the road was repaired?” resident Sue McGorry asked Christman. “A significant repair like this one and what was the expense at that time?”

Christman responded.

“The last time was 2012,” Christman said. “We put 40 feet of this same wall in at the top of the hill for $70,000 in that range.”

“Did you just say this is a low volume road, low traffic road?” McGorry then asked.

“Yes, as far as the conservation district with the low volume road grant program is concerned” Christman responded. “They have dirt road and low volume road grants available for road work.”

McGorry then asked Christman if erosion from the creek is a long-term existing problem.

“Is this going to happen again in another 10 years and the last time it was repaired, was it that same issue,” she asked.

Christman responded.

“It’s really not erosion from the creek,” Christman said. “The rock is eroding from the top down.

“Obviously, that creek has moved over many, many years, but it’s pretty much lined with the rock at the bottom now.

“We could do something down the road to try to protect that bank but it’s not causing the area to fail.

“It’s failing from the top down.

“The rock is eroding underneath the road and just literally crumbling down the embankment.

“Well, technically not. It was up a little further, a different location.

“We are going from the very end of that existing wall that we did 12 years ago and going 175 more feet down toward Route 100. “

Brooman questioned Christman on what he just said.

“You don’t expect to have to redo what you’re doing now in 12 years?” he asked.

“No. We didn’t with the other one,” Christman said. “We had good success with that 40 feet we put in 12 years ago, that has not moved.

“Actually, this failure was a distinct line right where that started to fail from, that held and that brings us back to why we chose to go with this same wall.”

Christman also provided the board with an update on Dollar General during his report.

“The only thing we’ve been working on is septic testing, but that’s it,” Christman said. “Obviously, we haven’t seen any plans yet.

“They’re trying to schedule septic testing as of yesterday.”

Chairman Curtis Dietrich said he received an email from PennDOT on the Dollar General site regarding the highway issues.

“It addressed concerns about the potential warehouse across the street and suggesting that we as a township would indicate they ought to have access often,” he stated.