Monessen road reopens after sinkhole filled

Mayor Ron Mozer said at Thursday’s council meeting that drivers can use State Road again.

Monessen Mayor Ron Mozer had some good news during Thursday’s council meeting, announcing that State Road, which was closed earlier in the week, is now open and operational.

Mozer declared a local disaster emergency Tuesday after it was found that a sinkhole had opened up on State Road due to mine subsidence. Mozer said the hole was discovered by a city employee on his way home from church.

By Tuesday morning, the state Department of Environmental Protection brought stone to fill the affected area of the road, but the labor was up to the city. By Wednesday, the city had a local contractor to compact the stone into the hole.

The hole measured approximately 10 feet by 15 feet wide and up to 15 feet deep, requiring several tons of stone to fill it. On Wednesday, after filling the sinkhole with stone, crews placed a cold patch and the area was ready to be reopened.

“Amazing support from the DEP, from our street department, from our contractors,” Mozer said. “I am just ex- tremely pleased with the response we got, and the road is open as of today.”

Mozer added that there was a gas line disruption Thursday, which prompted them to close the road again, but as of late evening, the issue was taken care of. There were no injuries or other problems from the gas issue.

“I am pleased that DEP came through, I’m very pleased with Mornak Excavation, that provided the labor to do this project,” he said. “They had the proper equipment. It really went, click, click, with everybody delivering the supplies or services as required as quickly as they could. And within the same day that we got all the material, we opened the road back up.”

Grant discussions

Thursday’s agenda included a resolution to seek a multi-modal grant of $2 million for a project on Parente Boulevard, but everyone except Mozer opposed it.

According to Mozer, the grant application was brought to the city by RVE Engineers, an engineering firm with offices in Pittsburgh, to be utilized for a Parente Boulevard trail conversion project.

However, Councilman John Nestor wondered why the grant wasn’t being used for other roads that could use the help. Councilman Anthony Orzechowski agreed with Nestor.

Mozer said the “multimodal” aspect of the grant means it won’t fund projects to pave streets if it doesn’t have other transportation aspects like walking, biking and other similar things. But Nestor questioned why RVE wasn’t searching for other grants that might not have such requirements.

Orzechowski and Councilwoman Karen Cosner added comments about the long-term commitments of the city for such a project, like maintaining it and doing landscaping work. Cosner said the project was a good idea, but she hopes to focus on other properties the city already owns.

“I went through and I went through every building we own, and I have a whole list of things that I would like to see them fixed before we get into another project,” Cosner said. “And this is wonderful, but I would like to see this whole room filled with people telling me that they really want this and they’re going to use it.”

City Administrator Mike Korposh and Mozer said starting projects with a multimodal grant could open opportunities for other grants that might allow for additional projects. Mozer said RVE could try searching for grant funds for road paving projects in the city, but it might be a difficult goal.

Despite the proposal being rejected, Mozer had a positive outlook on their discussion.

“I think it was a very good two weeks that we had these past couple of weeks, I think a lot of things took place,” he said. “I think the council meeting went very well overall. There was some discussion, and that’s why we have these things. It’s unfortunate that we put down a multimodal grant when it cost the city nothing to apply for. But such is life.”

In other business:

• Council approved to advertise and have the first reading of an ordinance to make Montraver Plan one-way and reduce the speed limit to 15 mph on the street.

• Council approved participation in the STMP program with the state Department of Community and Economic Development.