Fire company seeks
siren money

By DAVID HULSE

LACKAWAXEN, PA — Depending on who’s telling the story, three years ago, someone in township government may have offered $4,000 worth of assistance in moving the Lackawaxen Fire Department’s siren to a new location.

Township supervisors were trying to figure out who was responsible for what costs at their January 15 meeting.

The then newly installed siren was a longstanding subject of controversy, as nearby homeowner and former Supervisor Ed DeFebo complained that firefighters had erected it without permits and that they were harassing him with it.

After a good deal of debate and negotiation, the department agreed to relocate and raise the siren and amid the negotiations, firefighters say Solicitor Jay Rose offered township assistance, in-kind services in trenching a new power line for the tower.

Rose says no agreement was ever finalized.

“We discussed it, but we never agreed on anything,” Rose said at the January meeting.

Appearing before the township supervisors earlier this month, new fire department President Tom Cardinale said the department spent $7,000 on the project and is now looking “for closure” and a promised $4,000. He said the department has written the township about it, but has received no response.

Supervisors chair Brian Stuart said he didn’t know where the dollar amount came from.

“We’ll follow up on it,” he said.

In other January business, the supervisors completed some reorganization work, appointing Eugene Andersen to a vacancy on the Planning Commission, Wayne McCue to the Supervisors Vacancy Committee and Mary Wicksnes as Planning Commission Secretary.

They also scheduled a February 19 public hearing on Ordinance 63, which would allow communications towers as conditional zoning uses when they are attached to existing structures in R-1 zones.