Spring City notes

The Spring City Borough Council held its February 2011 meeting on Tuesday, February 8. Agenda items included the ongoing project to place lights on the fields used by the Spring Ford Youth Athletic League, the development of an historical walking tour of Spring City, and discussion of an amendment to the borough’s traffic ordinance.

Scott Smiley, president of the Spring Ford Youth Athletic League, presented additional information to the council regarding the placement of new lights at the fields used by the league. Smiley presented a photograph that illustrates the locations of the light poles around the fields. While Spring City Borough owns the land the fields are on, the fields are in East Vincent Township and the process is held up in that municipality pending the resolution of a problem with a nearby road. While the Spring City Council appears to generally be in favor of the lights, it refused to commit to approving anything until the road issue is settled with East Vincent Township.

The Parks and Recreation Committee held a meeting on Thursday, February 3, and is developing an historical walking tour of Spring City. The tour is about one mile, and is tentatively planned for the evening of August 14. It will cover 20 stops before returning to the starting point. The Chester County Parks and Recreation committee has approved a grant to provide water and refreshments for tour attendees. The committee projects potential attendance of between 300- 500 people (based on the attendance of similar local tours).

Council also discussed a potential amendment to Ordinance 340, Article 1, Section 4 in the borough code that will increase the general parking fine for violations from $10 to $30. This general parking fine covers any violations not specifically addressed by other parking ordinances and most recently has been applied to violations of the snow emergency zones. Council President Louis DiGiuseppe commented that the smaller fine offers no incentive for residents to move their cars, so increasing the fine may increase cooperation with the snow emergency zones and other regulations. The amendment vote was tabled until a future meeting to give the council time to decide if there are any other ordinances needing updates so that all proposed changes could be advertised at the same time.

Other items discussed were:

• A resident of New Street aired concerns about water runoff from Penn Street onto his property due to the recent paving of Penn Street. Council offered to have someone examine the issue further to see if corrective action needs to be taken.
• There will be a meeting on Friday, February 18, 2011 in Royersford regarding work on the Spring City/Royersford Bridge. A PennDOT engineer and representatives from both boroughs will discuss the bridge closure and repairs.
• The borough has spent $24,000 on snow removal to date due to this winter’s multiple storms. Council commended the Streets Department and the police in their handling of the weather situation.
• Council’s next meeting is scheduled for March 8, 2011.