Before a night of voting on various consent items started, an animated public hearing hour kicked off the State College Borough Council’s regular Monday night meeting.
Council voted to authorize ‘Phase II’ of the Atherton Street Corridor Project, the evening’s top consent item. The public works project, on which construction could begin in the summer of 2013, includes updates such as more lighting, brick sidewalk accents, better visibility and improved crosswalks at the College Avenue and Beaver Avenue intersections.
At the beginning of the meeting during the public comment section, one resident addressed council and asked, after describing his issues with late-night delivery vehicles causing a ruckus outside of his house, if the council would consider taking former Penn State vice president Gary Schultz’s name off of the Arnold Addison award.
Schultz was a recipient of the award named in honor of a former State College mayor in 2009.
Members of council were hesitant to comply with the request, expressing their desire to wait to pass any judgment until Schultz’s trial concludes. Some members of council also said they aren’t in the position to rescind the award.
‘Only the NCAA and the Soviet Union rewrite history,’ council member James Rosenberger said.
Following an unrelated comment regarding the state of the downtown State College economy, Borough Manager Tom Fountaine, while he could not divulge too many details, said that in the past two home football games, the Borough parked more cars than it did over the course of the first two home football games in 2011.
Meanwhile, where other action items were concerned, one issue that arose concerned one of the two ordinances to be amended. The vehicle peddler eating and drinking license was passed. When council arrived at the handbills ordinance, there was much discussion over whether to table it for future discussion.
When it came to a vote, the handbills failed to be tabled.
Also, council voted to move a decision on a Park Maintenance Facility to further discussion before it would go ahead any further.
Borough Council meetings are open to the public and held at 7:30 p.m. on the third floor of the Municipal Building, 234 S. Allen St.
