Lansford Borough Council wants to find out which roadways in the borough’s Edgemont section are private and which may be public.

The issue over whether the roads are public or private, and whether or not the borough should be or should have done work on them, was debated at Wednesday’s council meeting.

Chris Ondrus of Edgemont Road said he asked about documents regarding the roads being turned over in the 1960s, but was told the borough didn’t have the paperwork.

Council President Bruce Markovich said the borough secretary found paperwork, including deeds with measurements turning over property in Edgemont for roads, after Ondrus left.

The borough needs to determine what exactly was turned over, he said, and a survey will determine that.

Ondrus said he and others paid to have road repairs done, because they believed the roads were private. There were also allegations that the borough paved private roads in Edgemont without council approval.

Front Street resident Joe Gentis said he lived in Edgemont for 10 or 12 years and sold his house to Ondrus. He asked if the roads are public or private.

Markovich said it depends on what the deeds say. Gentis then asked if the borough ordinances document those roads as borough streets, and Markovich said they didn’t look at that.

According to his deed, the road was private, Gentis said, and he questioned why people had to pay on their own to maintain them, if the borough had considered them public due to maintaining them, as Councilman Bill Chuma said.

Markovich said they should have checked with the borough.

“We’re not responsible for what you assume,” Markovich told Gentis. “You lived there for 12 years. You assumed that was private property.”

Gentis replied that he had his deed, and he can read his deed. The borough had no legal paperwork to pave roads in Edgemont, except for infrastructure, and residents asked for the road to be paved and were told, no, because it was private.

“We all asked for it,” Gentis said. “But all of sudden, you’re paving two properties up there. All I’m saying is, it’s all after the fact. There’s not enough checking from a legal standpoint before you do things.

“I think you’re all responsible for what goes wrong,” he said. “I think you’re all responsible for mistakes.”

Chuma said council is going to check now.

Gentis reviewed the minutes and could not find a motion to pave the streets in Edgemont in 2021, and Markovich said lots of things don’t end up in the minutes, but it doesn’t mean the motion wasn’t made.

Gentis then pointed out that council had to reimburse thousands of dollars to the state Liquid Fuels fund in 2022 for the mistake, he said.

Markovich said council didn’t make the mistake, and said they had approval from John Davis, a municipal services supervisor at the state Department of Transportation.

“The man told us it was OK to pave those streets. That’s all it comes down to,” he said.

Gentis disagreed, saying residents had different information from the PennDOT supervisor.

“We’re going to get it surveyed,” Markovich said. “We’re going to get a survey, and we’ll take from there. Then, we’ll have an idea what’s going on.”

Council approved getting a price from Brinkash and Associates of Ashland, the borough surveyors, to survey the roads in Edgemont to determine which have been turned over to the borough.