The Summit Hill Water Authority is one member short and has a new chairperson at the helm as board members wait for the Summit Hill Borough Council waits until their February meeting to name a fifth member to the board.

Outgoing President John Michalik is one of two candidates waiting to see whom the council appoints to the board. Past Board Secretary Patrick Kane was named to the top spot as President on a 4-0 vote.The meeting was opened by outgoing Vice President Rob Collevecchio who was later re-elected to that position. Rounding out the board officers all by unanimous 4-0 votes were Ed Kruczek as Secretary and Joe O'Gurek as Treasurer. All board members were concerned about the missing fifth member and Collevecchio asked Board Solicitor Joe Velitsky if they could wait until the fifth member was appointed."You really need a chairperson and officers to sign checks and paperwork," said Velitsky. "This is usually done in the first week so it should be done tonight. When the last member is appointed by the council though, you can always re-elect officers."Initially no one was sure they wanted the top spot, but after Velitsky said a re-election could be held at any time, Kane volunteered to take the chair.The last member is expected to be appointed at the next Summit Hill Borough Council meeting. For undisclosed reasons, the council did not appoint any positions in the re-organizational meeting and instead voted to delay the appointments until February.In other business, Carbon Engineering was reappointed as the authority's engineer and Velitsky was reappointed as solicitor. Also, the authority renewed its memberships in the Pennyslvania Municipal Authority Assocation and the PA Rural Water organization.The authority also passed its 2011 budget with no discussion. Collevecchio announced the next meeting on February 8th at 7PM . During that meeting, the authority will be opening bids on the solar field project it plans to implement this year. The authority and Michalik have been working on this project for two years which is expected to save the authority almost $90,000 a year which Michalik has said will go toward maintenance of the over half century old water system.