Ringtown council will look into recodification of ordinances

Dec. 11--RINGTOWN -- The borough council will consider recodification of its borough code and ordinance books.

"Is there anything possible in updating the borough ordinance books?" Mayor Albert Breznick Jr. asked at Monday's meeting. "We do not have one complete borough ordinance book. We have bits and pieces everywhere."

Recodification is a process to review code books in order to see what needs to be reorganized, what updates are necessary and which ordinances have become obsolete over time.

"You're probably talking about $5,000 to $10,000," borough solicitor S. John Price said.

"Isn't there some way that we can do it in-house?" Breznik asked. "We could go back through the minutes for every ordinance and then make just one master copy here. About three or four years ago, a former council person was supposed to start it and the books are still there."

"You can call in special people to codify your ordinance book," Price said. "When Ashland started to do this, they got a preliminary draft, and I think they paid $5,000 for it. I don't think any solicitor went all through it because it was so long. I have a (ordinance) book, but I don't think it's been updated for 10 to 15 years. If you want to contact a codification service, you can ask them for an estimate."

Breznik favored the idea of doing the recodification in-house with volunteers to work on it over time. Borough secretary Angel Mays said the ordinances are in the books, but some are not in order.

"We can try to do that," Vice President Peg Forgotch said about starting the process. Forgotch chaired the meeting during the absence of council President Julian Milewski.

In the mayor's report, Breznick said eight juveniles were arrested for allegedly vandalizing the former elementary school building and playground equipment by spray painting graffiti in early November. He said the case is in process with the Schuylkill County Juvenile Justice Department.

Breznik requested permission to amend the police department policy and procedure manual to change the official uniform to black dress pants, dark blue shirt and black tie to make it more modern. The council granted the change.

Breznik explained that a more varied police schedule will be available in January with more availability of Patrolman Adam J. Bernodin Jr., who officially retires as Ashland police chief Dec. 27. Breznik congratulated Bernodin on reaching the milestone in his law enforcement career.

In other business, David Seresky requested that the Ringtown girls' softball league be granted exclusive use of the baseball field at the former Ringtown elementary school. Seresky said the league, which is becoming an official legal entity, used the fields at the Ringtown recreation park last year, but was only able to do so on the two days per week the Ringtown Little League did not use the fields.

Seresky said the Little League does use the school field from time to time for practices, but he said the softball program would like the exclusivity in order to better schedule games.

"Right now we have a steering committee and hopefully, next meeting, we'll have a board with president, vice president," Seresky said.

He explained the softball league had limited use of the recreational fields on Sundays and Mondays for six weeks and must pay a $1,000 sublease to the Little League. The Little League in turn pays Ringtown Recreation.

"We'd like to use the Ringtown elementary field and we, as a committee, will volunteer our time to clean up the field and make it nice so the girls can play on it," Seresky said. "That way we can have our practices and games on that field and not have to schedule our games only for Sunday and Monday."

Price advised that since the softball group is not an official organization, the borough cannot give any official permission at this time.

"You don't have an entity so we can't do anything even if we wanted to," Price said. "Once you form your entity, then you need to supply us with proof of the entity and proof of insurance, and then we can act. We can review the request in the meantime."

In another matter, borough fire Chief Raymond J. Dunsavage said the address of the Ringtown Valley Fire and Rescue Company is wrong as listed with the Schuylkill County Communications Center and the U.S. Postal Service. The listed address is 38 W. Main St., but it should be

"The county has our physical address of the fire station as 38 W. Main St. This is not correct since the property to our east is 42 W. Main St., and the property to our west is 64 W. Main St. The USPS also has our physical address as 38 W. Main St.," Dunsavage said. "I contacted Blake Buffington at the 911 center of Schuylkill County, and he agrees that 38 W. Main is the wrong address and agreed with 46 W. Main."

Dunsavage continued, "Blake cannot change our address at the 911 center without approval from Ringtown borough."

Dunsavage said a letter from the borough to Buffington approving the address change would be sufficient to have it changed officially at the county office. The council approved Dunsavage's request.

On behalf of the borough council, Forgotch thanked Councilman John Wasilewski for his commitment to the emergency management program and Councilman Alan Brokenshire for his efforts on the Northern Schuylkill Council of Governments. Both men are leaving the council at the end of December.

The borough council reorganization meeting will be held at at 6:30 p.m.Jan. 6, followed by the regular monthly meeting.

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