With just a few items remaining to finish, the new park on Route 903 in Penn Forest Township is nearing completion.

"The parking lot is complete, the front is stabilized and seeded, the playground is assembled, and the walking trail is ready for tar and chip, which is the last thing," project manager Greg Pavlik told the Penn Forest Township board of supervisors Monday evening. "There are a few access issues which need to be addressed, but everything else is pretty much done."Pavlik expressed a concern about the walking trail being wide enough to accommodate a vehicle and a slope from one of the soccer fields that runs into a retention area. Pavlik intends to address these items before completion.Also addressed were three new change orders to the original contract."Change order 4 was to correct for the depression between phase 1 and phase 2 of the park. We needed to address the low spots now. Change order 5 was necessary to re-grade the playground area, which was originally designed on a slope, but in fact needed to be level; and change order 6 which was to re-grade the second driveway, which had been incorrectly graded. The overall cost of these three change orders was $27,534," Pavlik said.Earlier in the meeting, township solicitor Thomas Nanovic addressed the residents regarding the "shutdown" that occurred on July 25."What happened was that our township treasurer, Mary Ann Lewellyn, contacted our workers' compensation carrier, Swift, to verify that our volunteer firefighters and ambulance personnel were indeed covered under the policy the way they are supposed to. At that time, she was informed that our policy had been canceled in May. Mrs. Lewellyn immediately brought this to the attention of the board. Mrs. Lewellyn also immediately sought to reinstate the coverage, and indeed we were informed that the coverage would be in effect at 12:01 Saturday morning.""As it turns out, township employees were always covered. Last year we entered into a contract with American Coast to Coast (ACC) to handle payroll and workers' compensation insurance. For certain purposes, our employees are employees of ACC. ACC had taken it upon themselves to shop around for a better rate and had in fact changed our coverage to a different company. Unfortunately, they did not inform us," Nanovic said."At this time, we are covered by Swift. We are looking into how we will handle this in the future to make sure nothing like this happens again."Also addressed during the meeting was the resignation of two employees and the hiring of two administrative assistants. Elizabeth McLaughlin and Chastity Mosteller were both hired at a rate of $13 per hour.Supervisor Christine Fazio also made a motion to end confidential secretary Susan Gibiser's probation period early and raise her hourly rate to $16.The township also adopted resolution No. 7, which lowers residential building permit and review fees.Resident William Miller questioned whether or not it was a conflict of interest for supervisors Phil Shedaker and Scott Lignore to vote on the resolution since both are builders in the township."Scott asked me about this earlier," Nanovic said. "I did check, the Ethics Act is pretty clear that there is no conflict when the subject affects the business as a whole and does not benefit the supervisor specifically."