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Last updated August 19 2008, 10:00 PM

Wednesday, August 20, 2008. It is the 15th birthday of Lacey McCourt and the wedding anniversary of Gary and Carolyn Beach. On this day in 1866, President Andrew Johnson formally declared the Civil War over.

Andy Borowitz writes that Sen. Joseph Biden (D-Del) is so confident that he will be the running mate of Barack Obama that he has begun preparing a 50,000 word acceptance speech. The speech will be an abridged version of a 200,000 word acceptance speech that Mr. Biden wrote when he ran for President in 1988.

It isn't often that I lean back in my red chair and prop my feet up to watch television. I normally am oblivious to the happenings of the world and ignore local television news--the barn burnings, the tragic accidents, the despair that surrounds us. My "negative" switch turns off easily!

Last night I had a little time and turned on the boob tube. Within seconds, a political advertisement for one side appeared on the screen, and in the same one minute time-out from the program I was watching an advertisement for the other side was broadcast. Mother might have called both of the men "shysters." Father would simply have uttered a word that meant "nonsense," a word rarely heard any more. No, it wasn't "baloney," "blarney," bunk," or any of the other "B" words--some of which we won't use here. Father might have emphatically said "horse feathers," but the word that I think I would have heard him say was "balderdash." The term originally, according to the writings of Ben Jonson in The New Inn indicated the word meant a combination of beer and buttermilk, a mixture of liquids. It came down through the years until it meant a mixture of words and ideas. The emphatic "Balderdash!" of a century ago was transformed into the current "Bull----" of the 1930s and subsequent. If you see the word "balderdash" on these pages in the future, remember to read one thing and know I meant something stronger...

The U.S. Department of Agriculture predicts farmers will harvest 12.3 billion bushels of corn this fall, down from 13.1 billion bushels in 2007. Still, it would be wise to keep in mind that it takes more energy to produce a gallon of corn ethanol than we get out of it. We have succeeded in reaching new highs in food prices. We created an area in the Gulf of Mexico where marine life can't live because of fertilizer run-off from recent storms. We have dammed rivers with hydroelectric projects and threatened the extinction of shad and salmon. We position wind farms on our highest and windiest peaks and we desperately hope that taking natural gas out of shale from more than a mile beneath us will make us all economically stable. As long as we are on a negative bent, we should also note that we will have to do significant timbering and road building to get the natural gas to a pipeline. And what about contaminating the millions of gallons of water it will take to frack a gas well? Where is that water going to come from and where is it going to go? There are simply more questions to the energy problem than there are answers...

Methane gas, a primary component of natural gas, has long been associated with coal formations. So what, you say, we don't have coal formations locally! (Coal-gas methane would be more prevalent near North Mountain) Even coal-bed methane maps don't show it in our area. Read on. Just give me a minute. If you have signed a natural gas lease you agreed that drillers have the right to drill for coal-bed methane. The drilling for natural gas and for coal-bed methane have similarities, but actually are miles apart in more ways than one.

Getting methane gas out of coal formations hasn't been economically feasible because of the cost of drilling deep wells and doing something with scads of ground water. But with the market value for cleaner-burning natural gas, with improved technology, with finding large coal formations, and with Federal tax credits for coal-bed methane development, a renewed emphasis is taking place even in our local area which is not coal-rich.

Landowners signing leases for natural-gas drilling are finding that a "hard point" with drillers is coal-bed methane which would be harvested locally through high-pressure injection of "fracing fluids" into subterranean-coal seams. This process fractures the seam so underground water can be pumped out and free-up gas formerly trapped in the seam. The gas is then collected on the surface. Understand that coal-bed methane would be fraced and collected relatively near the surface, while natural gas would be extracted from very deep in the earth. Don't forget--contracts you sign for gas drilling will insist that drillers have the right to drill for coal-bed methane.

The Halliburton Company pioneered hydraulic fracturing technology. The Los Angeles Times identified the original Halliburton fracing fluids as a mixture of napalm, gasoline, crude oil and sand. The undisclosed formula has certainly changed today, but diesel fuel is commonly thought to be mixed with water and sand. (Sand in either the gas or coal-gas drilling sticks in the fractures, keeping them open so gas will flow.) EPA investigators in Durango, Colorado, are said to have isolated benzene, naphthalene and fluorines in the fluids. These chemicals would logically enter groundwater following the fracing procedure of coal-gas methane, obtained relatively near the surface compared with the depths for natural gas in the Marcellus shale.

The Federal Government holds that there is no threat to drinking water supplies. The Energy Policy Act of 2005 (Pub.L. 109-058) specifically exempted hydraulic fracturing from regulation under the Safe Drinking Water Act. The act treats the salty, mineral-laden fluids being pumped to free methane trapped in coal seams as nonpolluting and exempt from regulation under the Clean Water Act. These fluids can be dumped into waste pits or simply poured into rivers and streams. Energy development has been exempted from some provisions of the Clean Water Act. 

In the production of coal-bed methane in the Powder River Basin of Montana and Wyoming, an estimated 4 trillion gallons of water will be pumped from coal seams. Wyoming methane drillers have dumped these fluids into the north-flowing Tongue and Powder rivers. When the water reaches Montana, it is used as irrigation water for agriculture production.

"Hydraulic fracturing of coal-bed methane wells is likely to release toxic and carcinogenic chemicals."
--Natural Resources Defense Council

Hydraulic fracturing is not a new term on the pages of the Benton News. In case you have been watching the Olympics every waking moment and missed the news, hydraulic fracturing consists of water containing specialty high-viscosity fluid additives injected under high pressure. The pressure is greater than the strength of the shale and the fluid opens or enlarges fractures in the rock. These man-made fractures extend from the injection well for several hundred feet. After the formation is fraced, a "propping agent" of sand in high-viscosity additives is pumped into the fractures to keep them from closing when the pumping pressure is released.

Drilling for coal-bed methane uses vertical wells, but requires more wells than drilling for natural gas, which means more surface is used for gas wells, and more risk of groundwater pollution occurs with every well drilled.

Read more about the potential and concerns for coal-bed methane by going here.

August 19, 2008. It is the birthday of Joann Heimbach, Betty McCahan, Connie Shaffer, and Ed Cole. Also celebrating birthdays today are former President Clinton, Tipper Gore and Ogden Nash. Ogden Nash is the man who wrote "Candy is Dandy but Liquor is Quicker" and wrote The Bad Parents' Garden of Verse.

Construction begins today on the biomass furnace enclosure at the Benton Area Schools. The furnace will burn corn, wood and grass instead of oil.

Eric Fricke had a busy summer, but now it is off to school. He installed his organ in the Benton Christian Church and provided wonderful music for many occasions. He participated for three days in the American Theater Organ Society Convention in Indianapolis, as part of the Young Theater Organist Competition. He attended the Pipe Organ Encounter Advanced in Lincoln, Nebraska, in which he got to play "a two-manual Kilgen tracker from 1871 and the large Schoenstein at First Plymouth Church."

Last Saturday, Eric attended the once-in-a-lifetime organ event at Radio City Music Hall. Eric said that "Unfortunately, the organ is in sad shape." A man by the name of Colonel Jack Moelmann spent about $120,000 to rent the Music Hall and then invited some of the top theater organists in the world to play a program with him. While in New York, he heard one of New York's newest organs, the Marshall and Ogletree at Middle Collegiate Church, where Cameron Carpenter is the organist. Eric had a piano lesson with Miles Fusco, one of the great piano teachers in the world . He got two days at New Jersey's Pt. Pleasant Beach playing some of the local theater organs (including the Wonder Morton at Loew's Jersey City) and exploring the boardwalk.

Eric heads to his new high school in Winston-Salem, North Carolina, Wednesday. He has been invited to lunch Thursday with Pier and Beth Holcombe. Monday is registration day at the North Carolina School of the Arts and classes start on Tuesday. His roommate is a guitarist! For those who would like to drop Eric Fricke an occasional "do your best" card, his address after Monday of next week will be NCSA Box 437, 1533 South Main Street, Winston-Salem, NC. 27127-2188

It is fun to dig around in old newspapers to see what pops up. For example, here are some local items making news in the edition of the Philadelphia Inquirer of this date in 1909.
• "Berwick.--Hungarians today became prosecutors of Mike Ewinetskie on the charge of adultery. His fellow countrymen learned that his family in the old country were starving while he was living in comfort here with another woman. He was sent to jail."

• "Jamison City.--After a lengthy period of idleness the central Pennsylvania Lumber Company has renewed operations at Jamison City, Columbia County, and is now cutting 70,000 feet of lumber a day."

• "Berwick.--'Fear God and keep His commandments, for this is the whole duty of man' is the scriptural verse which greets everyone who enters the office of Tax Collector George Unangst. His predecessor, John R. Sutton, is now a defaulter, with detectives hunting him throughout the West."

Another article caught my eye, from the same year but in the winter.  "While thawing water pipes at his home near Hazleton, Franklin Firedbanner, aged 62, was stricken with apoplexy and died in a few minutes." I turned to Wikipedia, the free internet encyclopedia. From that source I found that "Apoplexy" is an old-fashioned medical term, which can be used to mean 'bleeding." The word derives from the Greek word for 'seizure,' in the sense of being struck down."

That was not the impression of what apoplexy was all about from my discussions with Father many, many years ago. I decided to go back--way back--to see how it was described years ago. My first stop was in a publication dated September 15, 1869, known as the Deseret News, Utah's oldest continually published daily newspaper. In a style often used in that time period, the author of the article was simply listed as a "well-known medical author." No name was given.

The description was astonishing! It read, in part, "The exciting causes of apoplexy"--and I have to stop there. What in thunder could be "exciting" about a problem with something that has the dire name of "apoplexy?" Sorry for the delay in the story, but things aren't heading quite right here! I'll start the quote again. "The exciting causes of apoplexy and, indeed, of all diseases, are such incidents, punctualities, etc. as suddenly to disturb the circulation. so as to induce the proximate cause or condition, which, as I have already explained, is congestion of blood in the brain." Well--there you have it! I haven't a clue what I just typed and you haven't a clue what you just read...

So, you ask, what could cause apoplexy? The author of this 1869 article explained, "When the predisposition to apoplexy is strong, very trivial exciting causes may induce the paroxysm. Over-exertion, great fatigue, an indigestible meal, a surfeit, a late supper, an ordinary meal taken when the mind is wearied, worried, anxious, or depressed, or when the body is overheated or exhausted; severe mental effort immediately after eating; a mental shock; an extraordinary day's work.." His list of causes included everything except getting kicked in the head by a mule. The author finally took pity on his readers, and gave a short explanation. "Apoplexy," the unnamed author said, was "congestion of the brain."

Not at all satisfied, I leaped forward to see how apoplexy was defined in the year 1900, and consulted the Daily Herald, a newspaper printed in the Chicago suburb of Arlington Heights, Illinois. The edition was May 8, 1900. The newspaper reported that "Apoplexy, or its English equivalent, "a stroke," is a "good name for a disease under which the sufferer falls to the ground, unconscious and paralyzed, as if he had been struck down by a blow. The usual cause of apoplexy is the rupture of a blood vessel in the brain and a consequent escape of blood but the condition may also be produced by the sudden plugging a blocked vessel with a clot."

Sorry if I sound apoplectic, but I think I'll stay away from old newspapers for awhile.

August 18, day 231 of 2008. There are 35 days until the official start of autumn. It is the birthday of Karen Edwards.

Meriwether Lewis was born on this day in 1774. Thomas Jefferson chose Lewis to explore 800,000 square miles of land extending from the Mississippi River to the Rocky Mountains known as the Louisiana Territory. This enormous tract of land opened up a great deal of land for settlement and assured free navigation of the Mississippi River. Lewis asked William Clark to be his partner.

How could things not go wrong when a contract is signed that essentially says anything can be changed at any time without any reason? Things seem to be going very wrong in the credit-card industry where terms and conditions like that are standard. As went the banking industry, the credit card world appears ready to tumble. On top of the housing crisis, there is now an estimated one trillion dollars of credit-card debt. A growing number of credit-card holders are two and three months delinquent in the paying of their bills. Many of the people with the high balances on their credit cards are the same people who are having mortgage problems.

What can be done? Here are some suggestions to help you help yourself:

• Wait before you haul out the plastic from your wallet. Think it over. If you are still hot to trot two days later buy the item with cash. If you don't have the cash, don't buy it. If you really can't wait the two days, count to five--count five good reasons why you shouldn't buy the item.

• Give your credit cards to a good friend to keep.
 
• Never buy more than an amount you decide on before you go to the store. OK, you need the baking dish for when Cousin Claudia comes calling, but don't buy a new table cloth, too. Set an upper limit before you go shopping and stick with it.

Not enough reason to stop charging? How 'bout this? Didja know that credit card companies have on occasion raised interest rates as high as 32% on existing balances with no notice regardless of prior-payment history? My Boscov's charge account in the first paragraph in letters small enough to make my eyes squint states that the "variable rates can change monthly." Compare your original billing and see if the current billing doesn't cut the number of days you have to pay the bill. Watch for on-time payments that are charged late fees. Watch for charges made to the account when payments are made by phone.

Some credit-card companies are lowering your available credit limit. Your credit score could be affected if your available credit limit is lowered and the amount you charge stays the same. (What you charged against your available credit went up.)

Switching credit card companies isn't the solution. Didja know that 80% of the market is controlled by five companies? You can't take the companies to court; they are covered by binding arbitration and free of class action. And I betcha you're pelted with credit-card applications for new cards all the time.

Still, these companies are having their problems, too. MGIC Investment Corp. has a current $1.47 billion loss. Triad Guaranty reported a $75 million loss.

They took a little gravel,
And took a little tar.
With various ingredients
Imported from afar;
They hammered it and rolled it.
and when they went away
They said they had a good street
To last for many a day.
--the Argus, 1918

Park Street leading from the bridge over Fishing Creek to the intersection of School Street looks great and will be ready for the School Open house Thursday, August 21, from 5 to 7 PM.

You can see a picture of the first motorhome ever to run completely free of fossil fuels by going to http://www.otshows.com/PFRV/features_soltrekker.htm. The manufacturer claims that "It will never need to visit an RV campground to be plugged in to shore power or use a dump station and will almost never need to be filled with water. The interior will be fully solar powered, with electrical and heating systems fully covered by solar power." No petroleum, no diesel generator, no propane stove.

No, I cannot forget where it is that I come from
I cannot forget the people who love me
Yeah, I can be myself here in this small town
And people let me be just what I want to be.
--Small Town <http://users.cis.net/sammy/smlltown.htm>/, John Cougar Mellencamp

August 17, 2008. It is the birthday of Ron Hontz and the wedding anniversary of John and Beth McMichael. August 16 was 50th wedding anniversary of Bernie and Janice Shultz. Their family of three children, their spouses and seven grandchildren held an early celebration with a picnic and family reunion at Knoebel's. As part of the day, the group went to do the train ride. Imagine the surprise when the man taking the tickets for the train was Bob Byer, the best man at their wedding! How's that for a coincidence!

Columbia County Land Owners Coalition has established a cut-off date for parcel owners who want to sign up with the coalition for oil and gas leasing. The cut-off date is Friday, August 22, 2008. This date was set to establish negotiations as the group moves forward to signing a lease. The major concern of the group is protecting the environment, water supplies and the property owner. The next meeting for members only or those who wish to join the group is scheduled for Wednesday, August 20, 2008, at 7 PM at the Benton High School auditorium. The Columbia County parcel map will be reviewed at the meeting. Sign up at http://www.columbiacoalition.org/ until August 22. For further information, call Bruce Anderson, 458-4337.

The funeral Saturday wasn't exactly ordinary. John Herbert Laubach, Ph.D. (March 19, 1929-August 13, 2008) was laid to rest surrounded by fourteen members of the Columbia-Montour Barbershop Chorus who came to serenade him with Amazing Grace and It is Well with My Soul. Tears streamed from many eyes as a video showed John Herbert singing the Lord's Prayer from a few years back. Another video showed John Herbert singing with his brother Winton and with John Unbewust at the Benton Christian Church. How many funerals have you attended where the deceased was able to sing at his own service? John once said, "I hope they have pizza in heaven." He loved to make his own pizza according to a prized recipe and pictures were shown of him in the kitchen of his home in his white apron kneading dough. His pecan sticky rolls using a recipe he found in the Joy of Cooking was another favorite.  Pizza was served to his many friends and relatives at the conclusion of the service.  We all know, John, that by now you know if they have pizza in heaven!

"Let no one weep for me, or celebrate my funeral with mourning; for I still live, as I pass to and fro through the mouths of men."
--Quintus Ennius

Father loved to tell the story of one of Benton's finest who in his courting days would walk with his girlfriend through the pastures and the "bottom" land on our farm. Courting in those days--the year was 1933--was done far differently from the way it takes place today. Tandem bicycles were popular then--"courting' on a tandem" is what Father called it.

Father frequently told the story of the well-educated man worrying about the early days of the FDR Administration and his girlfriend who would ride his bike from "town" to our farm. The couple would then head out the lane from the macadam highway toward Fishing Creek. The very-much-in-love couple would park their bike. They would take a book to read, a hand towel on which to sit, some bread to nibble and would walk through the pasture to where they could sit and look over the "eddy." It was "their spot." They were "thick as thieves," Father always said in a kindly way.

Special costumes were worn by both the man and the woman for these forays into the woods. Today many of us "dress down," but in those days everyone "dressed up." The most conservative women wore a short skirt, the length varying from knee to halfway between knee and ankle. Casual for this man was a three-piece suit.

As I interpreted the way that Father told the story, the man was someone who still thought that the car would never supplant the horse. His use of a bicycle was a compromise between the two.

On one special day, the man confided in father that he was going to ask for her "hand" in marriage. Mother and Father watched from the security of their front window as the couple walked to the eddy hand-in-hand. After what seemed like a very respectable period of time, the couple walked back toward the house, the question having been asked and the acceptance quickly made.

    You did it in the kissin' game,
    That's how it came about;
    But still you kissed me, just the same,
    And you can't rub it out.
    And, Lindy, ever since that night,
    I haven't been exactly right.
--Found in a 1916 Collier's Weekly. Poem by C. L. Edson

Times were tough back then in those "the only thing to fear is fear itself" days and the prospects of marriage was a huge undertaking. Remember how Keats expressed it:

    "Love in a hut, with water and a crust,
    Is--Love, forgive us--cinders, ashes, dust."

Father and Mother walked out of the house as if they didn't know anything of what was going on and approached the man and his "intended." The couple bubbled over with joy. Details of the offer of marriage and the acceptance quickly emerged. It wasn't until the couple mounted the tandem bicycle that the whole story was known. The man had spread his towel and carefully helped lower her to the ground when they were by the eddy. He, anxious over his upcoming proposal of marriage, wasn't as careful when he sat down in the pasture--squarely on a fresh cow flop! Both were so elated that neither noticed the load in the back of his pants!

I would love to tell you the names of the man and the woman. I may do that sometime, but not in this issue. There are too many NRA members among the ancestors of this couple.

While we are on the subject, we should report that the "cow-flop" contest at the Montour Delong Community Fair Thursday was a flop. It was a case of cow maneuvers gone wrong.

For those who don't know about such things, participants buy a "deed" for a plot of land in an empty field that’s marked off in white paint on green grass. A couple of cows are then released and wander the way cows are wont to do. Whoever owns the deed to the section where the cow deposits her "muffins" wins a cash prize. The winner uses absolutely no skill!

We don't want to cause a flap over flop, but the fair needed a license in order to hold the contest and it neglected to get one.

Didja ever think that when you don't know what you are doing,
everyone else in town does?

Charles L. Ross, Sr., 378 Austin Trail, Orangeville, husband of Sarah J. (Lentz) Ross, died Friday afternoon at the Bloomsburg Hospital emergency room. He was 74. Surviving are his wife, Sarah J. (Lentz) Ross, and three sons, including James L. Ross (Treena), Stillwater. Funeral services will be Tuesday at 11 AM at the McMichael Funeral Home, Inc. Burial will be in the Bloomingdale Cemetery. Viewing will be Monday evening from 6 to 8 PM at the funeral home.
--Obituary courtesy of the McMichael Funeral Home. A complete obituary will be available in the Sunday edition of the Press Enterprise.

We'll close this Sunday with an Irish prayer, which you can find at http://www.e-water.net/viewflash.php?flash=irishblessing_en.

August 16, 2008. Willard David (Bill) Hiscox of Palm City, Florida, and Hughesville has a birthday today. It is the 50th wedding anniversary of Bernie and Janice Shultz. On this day in 1977, Elvis Presley, 42, died in Memphis, Tennessee. His singing career began when he performed hymns and gospel tunes with his parents at concerts and state fairs. At the age of 18, he recorded My Happiness and That's When Your Heartaches Begin for his mother in a Memphis studio by paying $4.

Congratulations to Krysten Ritter, apparently heading to Sunday nights at 10 PM in a major role in AMC's Breaking Bad. Entertainment Weekly says she'll play a love interest for Aaron Paul's Jesse. Krysten tells us that she leaves for New Mexico next week to begin shooting.

Our area is close to the center of the Marcellus gas drilling which stretches something like 600 miles through the Appalachian Basin from West Virginia and northeast into the state of New York. Marcellus is part of the Devonian era that extends to a minimum of 359 million years ago when fish were taking on legs and walking on land for the first time. The Marcellus has been estimated to contain anywhere from 168 trillion to 516 trillion cubic feet of gas. Attempts to drill in the thick, nearly impermeable Marcellus shale with conventional technology would barely work. The drilling of vertical wells, then shifting to horizontal wells followed by a multi-stage process of hydraulic fracturing to expose and release more of the gas formation to the wellbore is working with nearly 100% success rate.

Based on historical data gained from natural gas drillers across the United States, wells will experience an eventual decline in production resulting from a variety of factors.  Some wells have layers bypassed either intentionally or inadvertently during the original completion.

Landowners can expect that hydraulic fracturing, commonly called fracing (pronounced "fracking"), which relies on a blend of water, sand and chemicals pumped into the ground, will take place on underperforming wells during a subsequent fracing of wells. Refracturing has been extremely successful in the Barnett shale in the Fort Worth Basin.  Want to know more about fracing a well?  Take a look at a short video on the subject. Although not evident from this video, there have been problems in the past.

Employees at Halliburton Energy Services in Farmington, New Mexico, spilled 30 to 60 gallons from a 600 gallon tank of acid used for the hydraulic fracturing of gas wells on June 7, 2006. The spill sent a toxic cloud into the neighboring community resulting in a mass evacuation of 200 residents.

Some environmentalists have warned that hydrofracking has left polluted water in Colorado and New Mexico.  Hydraulic fracturing has been the prime suspect in incidents of impaired or polluted drinking water. In Colorado in 2001 while fracturing four wells, the gas-well operator "blew up" a neighbor's water well.  Fracturing opened an hydrogeological connection between the water well and the gas well.  Fracturing of wells injects millions of gallons of fluids underground which has the effect of a mini-earthquake to jar loose and release natural gas. Something like 70% of what is injected underground is retrieved. The fluids that are recovered are placed in holding pits on the surface to begin the evaporation process. Toxic chemicals can be released into the air and in rare cases into local surface waters. The fluids remaining in the pits are taken off-site and disposed of in a process not fully documented for those of us outside the industry in the local-drilling operation.  Return of the fluids to the ground could release toxic chemicals to the air thorough dust or result in accumulation of mixtures of toxic metals in the soil.

The Marcellus formation has been known since about 2000 and some vertical gas wells were mildly successful. As techniques were tested and proven in the Barnett shale, Marcellus wells began to make sense, even from 4,000 to 8,500 feet below the earth's surface.  Horizontal lateral lengths exceeding 2,000 feet extended from the vertical shaft.  A series of multistage fracturing with more than three stages per well came into being. The Marcellus remains in the exploration stage, but its future--both of promise and of possible pain--appears strong.

  Didja ever notice how we hide the truth about ourselves from ourselves?

The Benton Borough Council met for its August 11, 2008, session at the Benton Volunteer Fire Hall. Attending were Dan Hartman,Allen Hess, Dan Jankowski, Joshua Price, Mayor Swan, Bryan Getz, Ed Kocher, and Kay Yankovich. Dan Jankowski presided. Others attending included Lila Allen, Frank and Barbara Edson, Monty Hittle, Scott Kline, David Kline and Maralee Yost

Council received a letter of resignation dated July 17, 2008, from John Jankowski, Borough Council President. Council accepted John's resignation with regret. The office of President will be filled by Vice-President, Grant Little. Mike Klem was elected as Vice President. Dan Hartman reported that several gas companies have shown interest in Columbia County. Currently, the mapping process is taking place. "Benton Borough property will, most likely, be included."

Dan Jankowski reported that the Borough has received a letter from DCNR stating that in order to receive grant funds for the Park, there can be no leases with the Park. The school currently has a lease for the use of the athletic field. This was referred to the Park Committee for resolution.

Frank Edson, Park Street, stated that he felt that Park Street speeding will be a problem. Council Member Allen Hess requested that he contact the police each time he witnesses anyone driving at an excessive speed.

Frank distributed a letter expressing appreciation for the Park Street improvements. The letter also referred to the Park renovation project and the relocation of the basketball court. Advantages and disadvantages of the relocation were listed. Mr. and Mrs. Edson are asking Council to consider the advantages for leaving the court in its present location. A similar letter from Richard and Joanne Smith, Park Street, was also submitted. Mr. and Mrs. Smith also expressed their concern about the relocation of the basketball court to an area across the street from residential properties.  They expressed concern that it will cause a disturbance to the peace and quiet to that section of town.  The letter also cited reasons to keep the band shell in its present location. A suggestion to elevate the band shell and move it closer to the creek with the audience sitting on the street side was rejected by Zoning Officer Ed Kocher who noted that DEP approval requires that no building be within 50 feet of the creek.

Mayor Swan noted that the reason for moving the basketball court came from Larson Design in order to comply with the flood-zone areas.  The area of the basketball court is the only place to move the band shell. A public meeting was held to discuss the park renovation. Current citizen concerns will be brought to the attention of the Park Committee. Final plans will be approved by the Council.

Scott Kline expressed concern with speeding cars on Park Street, which he has "witnessed on many occasions." In the interest of public safety, Scott requested two stop signs be placed on Park Street. Council referred this request to the Public Safety Committee and the Public Services Committee. The question of lines painted (for walkers and drivers) on the section of Park Street where there are no sidewalks was referred to the Public Services Committee.

Monty Hittle asked to be considered for the position of Benton Airport Manager. This was referred to the Airport Committee. Mayor Swan referred to the Confederacy Reenactment scheduled for the summer of 2009. She expressed concern with campfires in the park and the grass damage which will result. She encouraged Council members to give this consideration before a decision is made regarding the approved location for the tents and campfires.

Council voted to hold a public meeting for discussion of the proposed Outdoor Furnace Ordinance. This will be held on Tuesday, August 26, 7 PM in the Fire Hall social room.

Dan Jankowski distributed a proposed Animal Control Ordinance. He encouraged Council Members to read the proposed ordinance and be prepared to make suggestions, additions, etc. at the September meeting. Dan also stated the Committee is recommending Kathy Barrett be hired as the Animal Control Officer for the Borough. He distributed a proposed contract which he requested Council members read and be ready to discuss at the September meeting. Kathy is currently the Animal Control Officer for Berwick and five townships.
--Taken from Borough Secretary Kay Yankovich's official minutes