MAHANOY PLANE — A group of Gilberton residents is planning to find ways to make improvements to the park in the Gilberton section of the borough.
The proposed initiative was raised during Thursday’s meeting of Gilberton Borough Council by Councilman William Hannon, who read the monthly report of Mayor Mary Lou Hannon, who did not attend.
In her report, Mary Lou Hannon wrote, “I met with a group of parents at the Gilberton park last week. They have formed a planning committee and would like council’s permission to solicit donations and pursue grant funding (from) a major corporation to do the park over in Gilberton. I suggested allowing them to use borough letterhead through Tina (Antalosky, borough secretary) and put their list of committee people on it, and have the borough open an account for that purpose. They must raise around $10,000 and have a group of 100 to 150 people ready to redo the park when it (funds) is rewarded.”
William Hannon also read a list of 15 names of residents involved in the project for the committee.
“Would they be like a recreation board?” borough solicitor Karen Domalakes asked. “I’m going to put in my two cents about using the borough’s letterhead and probably using the borough’s EIN (Employer Identification Number) for collecting, I would assume, if they’re not forming their own organization.”
In such a situation, the group would need to report to the borough as an affiliated group.
“We may need to consider an ordinance, or at least a resolution, forming a recreation board or some kind of board that they are on paper acknowledged as being part of the borough and allow the borough some oversight in exchange for being authorized by the borough,” Domalakes said.
“Do they just want to do this for the Gilberton park?” Councilman Lloyd George asked. “Why don’t we try to combine two of the parks together to get them repaired?”
George was referring to the park in the Mahanoy Plane section of the borough.
“I agree it should be for both parks in the borough,” William Hannon said. “Do it for the whole borough or don’t do it at all.”
“If this is just a group of people that wants to fix up that park, they can do it on their own,” council President Daniel Malloy said. “It might be a lot easier. If they’re going to form a recreation board, it’s going to be for the whole borough.”
William Hannon said he would take the information from the discussion back to the mayor.
In other business, the borough council approved the advertising of the revised flood plain ordinance, which will formally adopted at the August meeting.