Fire Chief Bill Roof appointed to Towanda Borough Council

TOWANDA - The Towanda Borough Council on Monday appointed Towanda Fire Chief Bill Roof to a seat on the borough council.

Roof will represent the First Ward on the council. Roof replaces Garrett Miller, who was elected mayor of Towanda last November.

Roof and retired state police employee Alex Garden had submitted letters of interest to the borough for the open First Ward council seat, said councilman Keith Long. Long nominated Garden for the post, while council member Jean Miller nominated Roof. Roof was then appointed to the council seat by a 4-3 vote of the council.

Mark Christini, William Kovalcin Jr., Jean Miller, and Paul Sweitzer voted to appoint Roof, while Shannon Clark, Rex Klinger, and Keith Long voted to appoint Garden.

Roof was not able to attend Monday's council meeting because he was at work, said Jean Miller.

New council members

At the start of Monday's meeting, Mayor Garrett Miller administered the oath of office to Clark and Klinger, who were elected to four-year terms on the council in November. Also taking the oath of office on Monday were Kovalcin and Long, who were re-elected to the council in November.

Dixie Cabucci, who was re-elected in November to a four-year term as the Towanda Borough tax collector, also took the oath of office on Monday.

The council on Monday also elected Mark Christini as council president for 2010 and Paul Sweitzer as council vice-president for the coming year. Christini and Sweitzer were the only names placed in nomination for those positions.

Jean Miller, who had served as council president in recent years, explained why she did not want to continue as president. "I think that it's best, with my son being mayor, that someone else has the position," she said.

In addition, the council appointed Pat Taylor, who lives at 408 Second St., to the Towanda Recreation Board.

Memorial

Ridgebury Township resident Joe Doherty also addressed the council on Monday about the proposed creation of a veterans memorial near the Bradford County Courthouse in Towanda.

Doherty prefaced his remarks by thanking the council for its plans to remove the existing memorial site at the intersection of Charles and Elizabeth streets in the borough, which Doherty has said is in poor shape.

Doherty urged the council to "get behind" the effort to create a new memorial to local veterans near the Bradford County Courthouse.

While American Legion Post 42 is a designated memorial site for veterans, it is not a good site for that, he said.

The problem with the American Legion Post site is that members of the public "would think they were trespassing" if they were to visit the memorial on the post's lawn, he said.

And, Doherty said, probably only a few people in the area would know that the American Legion post is a designated memorial site for veterans, he said.

Doherty provided written information that explains his vision for the new memorial site. The site would have a large memorial stone with the names of all Bradford County veterans who have died in service to their country.

"We are at war," said Doherty, explaining why the creation of the memorial is particularly appropriate at this time.

Christini encouraged Doherty to meet during the coming month with the council's Administration and Finance subcommittee to see if there are any borough-owned parcels that would be a suitable location for the memorial.

Lewis

Former council member Rick Lewis also addressed the council, raising the issue of the large number of properties that are tax-exempt in the borough.

"I can't afford to live in this community if you're going to keep letting the county gobble up properties," Lewis said.

Lewis noted that the county recently bought the former Valley Wood Works building on Main Street, and may buy the Human Services building, which is also located on Main Street.

Lewis said that when the decision was made to allow government property to be tax-exempt, "I don't think they expected government to get as big as it's gotten."

"We're not happy about this either," Christini told Lewis.

Kovalcin said he recently raised the issue with state Rep. Tina Pickett.

"She almost didn't care," Kovalcin said. "She more or less didn't want to hear it."

Lewis has said that the large number of tax-exempt properties in the borough increases the tax burden on the borough's residents.

James Loewenstein can be reached at (570) 265-1633; or e-mail: jloewenstein@thedailyreview.com.

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