DUBOIS – The DuBois and Sandy Township Fire Departments unanimously agreed on communication plans going forward this week.
The plan is split into three parts.
The Sandy and DuBois departments, together before and after official consolidation, will operate on the City’s fire dispatch channels, they will have dedicated fire ground channels, and regional fire ground channels.
This will also include converting the current Sandy Township fire channel into a regional channel with a new tower.
In the end, the fire subcommittee wants to formally request the Clearfield County 911 center and the Clearfield County Commissioners for these changes but wanted the Joint Board’s approval first.
Other notes from the Wednesday night consolidation meeting is as follows:
The fire study team made their first visit to the DuBois region Wednesday.
The two consultants visited four of the nine fire stations. The duo will be back September 25th to tour the remaining five.
While on the tour they spoke to local firefighters and gathered input and data for their report.
The 75% design meeting for the City Municipal Building renovations was completed last week and the 90% design meeting will be next week.
Township/City Manager Shawn Arbaugh stated that bids will be requested on September 9th with the current schedule. The renovation will involve “growing pains” as Arbaugh put it. This will include converting the current meeting room into office space and relocating public meetings elsewhere temporarily.
The Joint Board advertised for bids for a contractor to help work out a budget involving the municipalities, water, and sewer accounting with an eye towards developing the Consolidated City of DuBois tax structure.
In addition to opening the bids to anyone through advertising, the Joint Board sent requests to eight firms specifically.
Despite all that, only one firm put in a bid. The Pennsylvania Economy League, Central PA Division with a bid to not exceed $78,000.
If approved, this would be 90% covered by phase 3 of the Strategic Management Planning Proposal (STMP) Grant. The final 10% to be split Sandy and DuBois.
The Joint Board approved the bid on the condition approval for the phase 3 of the STMP Grant is awarded.
The Special Counsel is moving the actuarial studies forward.
This will allow the municipalities to begin planning on how to combine their police union pensions into a singular pension and the non-uniform pensions into a single pension.
These plans will need to be negotiated with the municipalities’ employees.
