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Mayor urges council to hire officers

Police chief position also open, commission to resume interviews

HOLLIDAYSBURG — Hollidaysburg Mayor Joe Dodson urged Borough Council to hire two police officers as soon as possible during his mayoral report at its Thursday meeting.

The borough — which is budgeted for nine officers — will be down to six with the retirement of one of the officers, Dodson said.

“They do a heck of a job. They’re sworn to protect us so we need to get them help as soon as we can,” Dodson said.

The Borough Council has also been looking to hire a chief of police since August 2021.

After Councilman Jeffrey Ketner asked for an update on the chief’s position to be put on the agenda for next month, Councilman Brady Leahy asked if the topic of the police officers could be discussed that night.

However, as it was not on the agenda, Council President Joe Pompa said it would have to wait, to which Leahy argued that the Civil Service Commission would then have to wait until next month for approval to hire.

“Even if you get the list and then they decide and then they’ve got to go through the background checks and all that, you’re probably looking at three weeks. Another week is not going to matter,” Pompa said about the hiring process.

Borough solicitor Nathan Karns said that if a list of candidates was received from the Civil Service board, a special meeting could be called for the candidates to be approved.

Speaking from the audience, Civil Service Commission Secretary Ann Andrews defended the board, saying it was not dragging its feet.

“We were moving along, but we were told that the council was going to hire a chief of police and that person may be wanting to participate or at least sit in when we do the candidates for interviews,” Andrews said. “However, since that’s not happened yet, the Civil Service Commission will meet on Monday to do the interviews.”

Andrews also informed the council that the candidate pool was “very low” and that of the 10 applications received, two withdrew and two didn’t show up for the physical agility and written exam.

“All we had for the physical agility and written exam were four candidates,” Andrews said.

Following the meeting, Pompa said that the council had received about 12 to 14 resumes for the chief of police position but thought they needed to advertise again.

“The job market is horrible right now,” Pompa said. “We want to make sure we get the right person.”

He said he does think that the borough is close to finding someone to fill the position though.

In other matters, Borough Manager James Gehret informed the council that he and Leahy had met to discuss some issues with the sidewalk grant application.

During last month’s meeting, the council approved the allocation of $50,000 toward a grant that would reimburse borough residents the cost of having their sidewalks repaired.

One of the issues with the grant application to be distributed to residents was whether the council wanted there to be a cap on the amount of money a project could be, Gehret said, with another being how to handle a situation where multiple residents want to go into a sidewalk project together to lower costs.

“I don’t have a problem with something like that where they get a good quote but I think we need to watch issuing a check back to one neighbor assuming that neighbor is going to disburse the funds out to the other people,” Gehret said.

He also asked that one of the council members be approved to sign off on the projects with him.

“I have no clue what it would cost to do a sidewalk, the material that’s used,” Gehret said. “I think we have somebody here that would have that skill set that could review this and could say ‘yeah a 200 foot sidewalk doesn’t cost $12,000 to do by one person.'”

The council approved Leahyto sign off on the sidewalk projects with Gehret and that no cap be placed on those projects.

With that decided, the applications will begin to be distributed, Gehret said.

However, Hollidaysburg resident and Ms. Wheelchair PA Ambassador Laurah Zeek is worried that unless the sidewalk repair is made mandatory, not enough sections will be fixed.

As someone who uses a wheelchair, Zeek has said it is almost impossible for her to use the borough’s sidewalks. She has addressed the council several times previously on the issue. During Thursday’s meeting, she tearfully informed the council that in being forced to go onto the road to get around Hollidaysburg, she and her nephew have almost been struck by vehicles on multiple occasions.

“Voluntarily, they’re not going to do it unless they’re in somebody’s shoes like me,” Zeek said about borough residents applying for the grant. “I think unless they make it mandatory and go around to places that need it the most, that’s the only way they’re going to get a lot of the borough to get it done.”

Mirror Staff Writer Rachel Foor is at 814-946-7458.

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