Weatherly Borough Council on Monday expressed frustration over a state project to repair the Hudsondale Street wall along the Hazle Creek.

Council previously approved a utility reimbursement agreement with the Pennsylvania Department of Transportation for relocating utility poles and lines.

The reimbursement is not what was originally promised, borough manager Harold Pudliner told council.

“Initially, there was to be a 75% reimbursement from PennDOT,” he said. “The highest cost share they can do right now is 50%.”

There are two other poles on private property held by Norfolk Southern, and this will be prorated, which will bring “the potential reimbursement up to 64.3%,” Pudliner said.

“The 75% offer is no longer available, because the contractor had received the notice to proceed,” he said.

The borough already secured easements it needs to move its utility poles on a temporary basis for the project, which is slated to begin next year, Pudliner said.

The borough was ready to begin moving its poles, but must first navigate through PennDOT’s utility relocation software, he said. The manual alone is 178 pages long.

Pudliner expressed concerns last month about the failing wall giving way and taking down the borough’s utility poles. PennDOT, however, brought in large rocks to secure the leaning wall.

The borough never even knew that PennDOT was placing the rocks along the wall, Pudliner said.

“We had no clue what was going on,” he said.

Likewise, the borough had no idea that Hudsondale Street would be going down to one lane, Pudliner said. PennDOT came in and started putting up barricades with no notification to the borough, he said.

“The borough’s not even made aware that the state does these things,” councilman Michael Bellizia said. “They just come in and they are moving lines and doing whatever they want willy-nilly … and nobody knows what’s happening.”

Then, people are posting about things on Facebook, and the borough doesn’t know how to respond, because it wasn’t notified, he said.

“That is the most frustrating part of this job,” Bellizia said.

He also was frustrated with the changes in the project, such as the start date and the shift in reimbursements from 75% to 50%.

“This road was going to be done two years ago … and if I had to bet a million dollars, something else is going to screw it up for next year,” Bellizia said.

“It’s a never-ending battle of shifting, changing, different numbers, different prices, like how would you run a household if you went to the grocery store every week and everybody just went in and repriced everything?” he asked. “But here it’s a $100,000 problem, not $6 on eggs.

“It’s unbelievably frustrating. You do things; you make decisions; you plan stuff out, and somebody else comes in and messes it all up, and then you’re held responsible.”

The borough will move forward on the project, Pudliner said, adding, “And then we’re done.”