HOLLIDAYSBURG — The county’s parking garage, the possible decertification of Explore Altoona, the county’s stormwater mitigation and an overview of the Phoenix Volunteer Fire Department’s 2024 activities were topics of discussion during the Hollidaysburg Borough Council meeting Thursday evening.

During his borough manager’s report, Ethan Imhoff said he spoke with Blair County Commissioner Dave Kessling earlier in the week and there were two items he wanted brought to the council’s attention. According to Kessling, there were maintenance issues with the county’s parking garage on Mulberry Street “that they intended to address sometime this summer.”

“However, I guess there’s a few pieces of concrete that recently fell off the parking garage, which led to a very detailed inspection from their engineering firm, which resulted in some not so good news,” Imhoff said. “They anticipated that there’s going to be a recommendation coming to close parts, or all, of the parking garage.”

Imhoff said Kessling reached out to him proactively to develop a plan for accommodating the 100 to 150 vehicles that park in the garage daily, since they won’t be able to use the space “for a month or two, as these emergency repairs take place.”

The other item, Imhoff said, was the commissioners asking all Blair County municipalities to consider a resolution that would decertify Explore Altoona as the county’s tourism promotion agency.

“We did receive a formal request from the commissioners, along with the resolution, that we intend to put on the March agenda,” Imhoff said. “That went out to all Blair County municipalities earlier this week, along with several letters in support of the commissioners’ position that I’ll be forwarding to the council here shortly.”

In other matters, during the meeting’s public comment section, Gaysport resident Elda Boose asked for clarification and updates on her neighborhood’s stormwater mitigation project.

“Hearing within the last week that funding for many projects had been frozen was concerning,” Boose said.

Imhoff addressed the concern, saying “the funding, to our knowledge, is safe” as most of it is “coming from a state, not federal grant.”

“I’ve not heard anything to the contrary that we won’t be receiving that,” Imhoff said.

Also regarding the project, Imhoff said historic preservation consultants had been out exploring and excavating various parts of the site over the past month or two.

“When you use state or federal money, and you need a DEP permit, which we do on this project because water is being discharged into the river, the state Historic Preservation Office has to give blessing to the DEP before the permit gets issued,” Imhoff said.

The consultants found a few “what would look to maybe be arrowheads and pieces of pottery,” Imhoff said. Those items will be reported in a Phase One report to the preservation office and, based on their rulings, additional excavations may be required.

“The freezing weather has not helped the ground conditions,” Imhoff said. “So we’re trying to get through this process, but that’s where the project stands.”

In other matters, Eric Schmidt, assistant chief with the Phoenix Volunteer Fire Department, presented an overview of the company’s activities over the previous year.

“In 2024, the department answered 464 calls,” Schmidt said. “Of those, 15 were actually working structure fires, one of those involved a vehicle crash where hydraulic rescue tools had to be deployed to pull the person out of the vehicle.”

Schmidt said the 464 calls was an increase of 80 calls over 2023 and the department is already at 47 calls “44 days into 2025.”

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