New facility would be built on land Pennington owns off North Main Street in Hopewell Township, just outside the borough line
By John Tredrea
A vote on whether to accept a bid to build a new 11,200-square-foot Public Works facility is expected at Monday night’s regularly scheduled Pennington Borough Council meeting.
The new facility which in the 1999 plan was to be 16,800 square feet in size would be built on land Pennington owns off North Main Street in Hopewell Township, just outside the borough line.
About $250,000 already has been spent on site work, including an underground storm water drainage system, said Councilman David Garber. Mr. Garber is council’s liaison to the Department of Public Works. The new facility would replace a dilapidated one off Broemel Place, which has been cited repeatedly for violations by state health and safety officials.
"Our current facility is falling apart and fairly regularly found to be in violation of state codes," Mr. Garber said. "We have to spend money correcting those violations. The human side of this is that our Public Works employees need a clean, safe place to work, which they do not have now. We have to protect our equipment, much of which is stored outside now."
Mr. Garber said he could not disclose the amount of the bid on which council is expected to vote Monday night. "We’ll be negotiating on the amount in closed session before the meeting is open to the public," he said. "During the public portion of the meeting, the amount of the bid will be stated and discussed."
He said the borough received five bids to build the new facility, ranging from $1.5 million to $1.8 million, and rejected all of them. As a result, state law requires an affirmative vote from two-thirds of the council to accept the bid that will be on the table Monday night. A simple majority would have been needed to accept a bid outright.
Mr. Garber said the state has told the borough that, due to new stormwater regulations, it must stop washing equipment at the current facility, which borders Lewis Brook. Also due to those regulations, the borough must stop storing road salt at the current facility.
Borough officials say the state is allowing the borough to continue these practices for now because of the ongoing project of building a new public works facility, where vehicles would be washed indoors and salt stored in a closed dome rather than a lean-to, as it is now.
A dome would not be allowed on the current site, Mr. Garber has said.
Built about 50 years ago, the current facility consists mainly of a crude block and wood-frame structure, about one-fourth of which is a lean-to covering vehicles. The roof of the lean-to is sagging. Employees eat lunch in a cramped space on living room chairs plucked from the garbage, next to a bathroom where the sink does not work. The equipment bays have dirt floors.
Morris Fabian, the senior member of the Public Works crew and shop steward of its union local, said: "From a health and safety standpoint, we need a new facility. I’m very concerned about the conditions here."
Public works Supervisor Jeff Wittkop said of his seven-man crew: "These guys work in the rain, snow, freezing cold, broiling heat and never complain. They do a fantastic job for the borough. They should get a decent place to work."
Messrs. Wittkop and Garber urged borough residents to attend Monday night’s meeting and voice their opinions on the issue of accepting the bid to build the new facility.

