The Mahoning Township supervisors made a motion this week to advertise bids for fuel and road materials with a special stipulation.

The board added a provision in regard to hot mix and warm mix asphalt to the bid, where any vendor can supply hot mix in lieu of warm mix as long as the municipality is willing to accept it. Vendors are responsible for notifying the Mahoning Township office as to what type of mix they are going to provide, and should keep the option of providing either mix in mind when submitting a bid.

“What happening is, most of the plants are switching to warm mix asphalt, WMA, My problem is, I don’t know with our crew and our paving equipment if we’re going to be able to put down warm mix asphalt and get the same kind of compactions and stuff that we get with hot mix. This gives us the option of the hot mix for this year,” Steigerwalt said.

Steigerwalt and Ruch said that Mahoning’s road crew has traditionally worked with hot mix, though it will eventually become unavailable.

“Everybody seems to be going that way, and the contractors are going that way,” Ruch said.

Warm mix asphalt is known to be more environmentally friendly, as it gives off less fumes, though Steigerwalt and the other supervisors were wary to switch over, as they were still uncertain of the quality.

Planning fees

In other business, the board approved an amendment to the Planning Commission Fee Schedule for review of a sketch plan and boundary line adjustments.

Residential applications for boundary line adjustments will incur an $800 professional consultant’s fee, and nonresidential applications will be charged $1,500.

Sketch plans will now come with an $800 fee if they require an engineer review.

The board approved a waiver to the definition of a minor subdivision in a boundary line adjustment plan for technical sales and assistance. The waiver will allow for a line adjustment to occur on the commercial property as a minor subdivision, whereas that classification is normally reserved for residential properties.