Elizabeth Borough police back on duty
By Christine Haines
chaines@yourmvi.com
After a two-week shutdown due to a COVID-19 exposure quarantine, the Elizabeth Borough police department is back on the job today.
Service returned at midnight, with borough police again patrolling in Elizabeth and West Elizabeth. Chief William Sombo expressed his gratitude to five surrounding police departments that filled in for the past two weeks. Letters of thanks will go out to each of them.
Sombo said new protocols will be in place as the police station reopens today.
“Any time anyone is in the police station, everyone has to have a mask on,” Sombo said.
Municipal Authority for sale?
Council also met with a consultant from Boenning & Scattergood, Inc., an investment banking firm, to discuss the possibility of selling the Elizabeth Borough Municipal Authority.
Consultant Kent Lindsay said the sale would take a tax-exempt property and return it to the tax rolls if it is purchased by a for-profit company. He said a preliminary assessment of the authority puts its value at $12 million to $15 million, with debts of about $7 million and reserves of about $1.5 million.
A full work-up for a sales proposal and the process of going through all the necessary steps to sell the authority would probably take about a year, Lindsay said.
Borough Solicitor Krisha DiMascio said that time frame could work with the borough’s strategic plan. Requests for proposals for that plan are due at the borough building by 4 p.m. today, with three consultants expected to submit proposals.
“It looks like this might fit in with that and be on a similar time frame. One would help the other, I would think,” DiMascio said.
To read the rest of this story, please see a copy of Friday’s Mon Valley Independent, call 724-314-0035 to subscribe or subscribe to our online edition at https://e.monvalleyindependent.com.
