Lansford Borough Council on Tuesday discussed street repairs in the borough’s downtown business district with remaining paving funds.

Councilman Bill Chuma said the borough spent about $30,000 of $50,000 set aside for street repair and would like to turn the borough crew’s attention to the unit block of West Ridge Street.

He suggested milling and paving the driving lanes, or about a 24-foot wide section, at a cost of $9,500.

Chuma also pointed out the borough needs to start looking for grants or other funding to reconstruct West Ridge Street, including curbs, storm sewers and manholes.

He estimated the cost of those repairs to the 200 and 300 blocks of West Ridge Street at least a quarter-million dollars.

Any other kind of repairs, and not a full reconstruction, would only be a Band-Aid lasting at most five years, Chuma told council.

He also pointed out that paving the former ice skating rink and current skate park will cost $27,000.

Council discussed using the ice skating rink as a basketball court in the future, even though some council members would like to see ice skating again.

However, they also raised concerns about kids throwing rocks and other objects into the rink when there are thaws, and also if the area is cold enough to stay frozen all winter.

The area is level enough to support a basketball court, and the borough could do the work as far as installing poles, backboards and hoops, Chuma said.

The borough also got a price on installing LED lights in that area of the park, and lights would come on at dusk and stay on for four hours, Council President Bruce Markovich said. The cost will be $7,300, and include installing at least one additional light.

Code

Council also is moving ahead with a job description for a code enforcement officer, which includes giving the officer authority to cite people for quality of life violations.

Council considered hiring a constable to issue quality of life violations, but the police union objected, saying the citations are their jurisdiction and the borough would need to negotiate any change with them.

Markovich said he discussed giving the code officer enforcement powers with the borough solicitor, Robert Yurchak, who believed that the borough would win if the police union grieved the issue.

Council also discussed changing the rental ordinance to include wording to address nuisance properties. Markovich said they may want language to allow the borough to pull a rental license after a set number of nuisance calls at a property, and council seemed in favor of the move.

Plantfest

Collevechio also announced that Lansford has seen its last Plantfest, due to the poor cellular reception in Kennedy Park.

The organizer is looking for a different venue, because vendors could not process credit card purchases due to the lack of cell service, she said.