BROCKWAY, Pa. (EYT) – The ongoing discussion about the intersection of Route 219 and Route 28 in Brockway heated up to a shouting match at the October Brockway Borough Council meeting.
Business owner Ron Matson came to the meeting to demand to know why the council did not inform him and the public of the map that the council received in a PennDOT information meeting in June.
Ron Matson (left) argues with Council President Chris “Smoke” Benson in Brockway.
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According to previous stories, the map was a mockup to help find contractors and available upon request by contacting PennDOT. The map was listed as not a final drawing in previous articles. PennDOT’s David Layman said that the project at that point was still in its infancy and not enough had been figured out to take to the public at the time.
Matson, however, cited the map as a reason that business owners in the area do not trust the borough council.
“Going forward, if council wants to work with business owners, you need to be more open,” Matson said.
Council President Chris “Smoke” Benson interrupted Matson.
“The newspaper debunked [the map] from being new,” Benson said. “The TV station debunked it. I don’t appreciate being accused of holding information back. You’re twisting this out of shape.”
This map was created simply for reference and is not an actual design or plan for the intersection.
Matson continued to accuse the council of not being open about the project, which Benson responded that he did not appreciate Matson calling him a liar. Benson said that the council is not hiding anything. He even referenced council members who voted against the project and asked them to say if they had been hiding anything. Every council member said they were not hiding anything from the public.
Benson then added that Matson’s insistence on saying that the council is hiding information from the public has led to the argument becoming personal. Benson said that social media posts are attacking two council members personally and the council itself in general.
Matson said he did not know about the social media posts and did not approve of them.
Matson said that he had met with Layman and got more information from Layman in a half hour than he had from two years coming to council meetings. Benson countered that the reason he got more from Layman the other day was because there was new information then. Benson had that information in front of him and had just received it the day before.
“You met with David Layman the day before we did,” Benson said. “I can’t help that. I was out of town or I would have met with him then, too.”
On October 1, Layman informed the borough council that the consultant on the project is AE Com. Letters to affected businesses were sent on September 19. PennDOT is using Transportation Improvement Program (TIP) money to fund the preliminary engineering. It is 100% provided by the state and will not come from the borough. The balance of the project’s costs will not be allocated at this time because the project is still too early to have enough information.
PennDOT also gave a tentative timetable. Benson stressed the “tentative” part of the timetable.
“If anything goes wrong with one part, the whole thing will change,” he said. “This is the plan they have right now, but it can change.”
The upcoming parts of the project will kick off on October 16 when PennDOT and the consultant, A.E. Com, meet to discuss cost estimates. Then, on October 22, they will put it into a bidding process. Preliminary engineering may begin October 31. By November 18, they hope to do field surveys.
Designs, discussion, and finalization do not begin until 2020.
“We are not hiding anything from anybody, including you,” Benson said to Matson. “We have nothing to gain from this. This is not personal. You’re the only one who’s been here. The other businesses who were here early fell off the map. We have been as open as we can with everyone. That map was not official. You tried to make that map significant and the TV station shot it down. The newspaper did the same thing. I take personal offense to being accused of lying. I have no reason to lie to you.”
The other council members promised that if they had anything official, they would make sure it was made public as soon as possible.
At the end of the public comment section of the meeting, Benson offered to shake Matson’s hand and said that he hoped there were no hard feelings. They shook hands.
“We’ll have to agree to disagree about this,” Matson said of the project.
The intersection where the project may go through.
The announcement of the grant for the intersection came from Pennsylvania State Senator Joe Scarnati (R-25). The senator’s office has not returned calls for comment on the intersection project.
The Brockway Borough Council will meet again November 7. Any additional information from the October planning dates will be relayed to the public at that time.
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