Both North East Borough Council and North East Township Supervisors held a public hearing at the North East High School auditorium to receive public input on the formation of a marina authority that would take over ownership and control of the North East Marina from the PA Fish and Boat Commission. Every speaker at the hearing voiced their support for the idea of forming the authority. The members of council and the board of supervisors all agree they want the marina to continue to operate, but after all of the public input from previous meetings and this hearing, they are still not ready to commit to the authority until all of their questions are answered. There was no explanation at the hearing of what those remaining questions are.
The group trying to form the authority has generated many ideas for making the marina profitable, performing necessary repairs and upgrades and maintaining the facilities in a cost effective manner, but until they have control, they cannot implement any of those ideas while awaiting the outcome of the decisions from council and supervisors.
The future of the marina depends on how the council and supervisors vote and if questions remain, now is the time to ask them. It seems concerns about financial liability have been answered as well as they can be and while there will always be concern about the future effects of a decision today, there is no way to step into the future and see every possible outcome before it occurs. At some point a decision must be made.
UPDATE
North East Township Supervisor Frederick Shunk provided clarification on a specific question he has about forming an authority. What type of authority would a marina authority be? So far, no one has been able to answer that question.
In the link below, sections 8 and 9 describe the kinds of authorities that can be formed in PA, but before submitting paperwork, the township needs to know if a marina fits into an allowed category and if so, which one. Two possibilities may be a recreational authority or a port authority. If one of our local solicitors or PA legislators or someone from Harrisburg can answer that question we may be a lot closer to moving forward which is what everyone wants.
Municipal Authorities in Pennsylvania
This is how we can get this done. Identify the specific questions and answer them one by one. Eventually they’re all answered and we’re there!
Discover more from North East PA Online
Subscribe to get the latest posts sent to your email.
Citizen X says
Paul,
Thank You for this story. The statement made by the township chair at the end of the hearing I feel it was him speaking for himself and possibly the other supervisors. I do not believe he was speaking on behalf of the borough officials. Atleast that’s not how I took it. We can’t really know what the borough officials are thinking either as they didn’t say. I suppose the decisions could be discussed at the next meetings of both municipalities. Hopefully they heard what the community wants.
Paul Crowe says
My take on their positions is based on my attendance not only at last night’s hearing, but at many previous borough and township meetings. If anything, the borough seems more ready to move on the proposed authority than the township, though right now both entities seem a little overwhelmed by what is obviously a somewhat complex process on creating the authority.
It would be a little more reassuring if they said they wanted to move ahead with the formation and were now figuring out how to go about it, but that really is not clear. It’s almost as though they would have preferred this situation hadn’t come up at all and the marina could have continued as it was, but that was not an option and now the decision must be made.
———–
I updated the above post to reflect new information.