RS Boro Purchase New Police Vehicle

Roaring Spring Borough Council approved the purchase of a 2024 Interceptor from Costars for the police department.

The purchase was made due to the previous SUV owned by the borough being totaled in a collision.

Rodney Claycomb gave an update on the fire company. When he last met at a meeting about two months ago, he said they were taking out a loan in the amount of $24,641 to buy thermal imaging cameras and nozzles.

“The good news is, we got a grant from Nason Hospital for $10,575 to purchase one of the thermal imaging cameras and a charger,” he said.

Claycomb said the bad news is that they had one of their rams break. However, with the grant from Nason, they will have extra funds from the loan to buy one.

They will be applying for the Pennsylvania grant after Labor Day, and he said generally they have been getting about $15,000 from in the past.

Claycomb said they would use the grant money to help pay down the loan.

He said they have also been trying to save for a new rescue truck and want to keep their equipment up to date.

According to Roaring Spring Mayor, Dennis Igou, the Roaring Spring Dam Days were successful and they saw a good turn out.

From this, there was a discussion between the board members on bringing back the fair, games, and ride portions of the event back

Council Vice President, Mary Claycomb said it was held at the Garver YMCA at first. Then it moved to the Spring Dam parking lot, then the football field and then Shawnee Park before disappearing.

“The Lion’s Club probably couldn’t meet the liability issues that were going on, so it just dwindled off,” she said.

Borough Manager Lisa Peel said she worked with the fire company for several years to try to revamp it.

“We got entertainment in, but we couldn’t get anyone out of their house to make money to pay the bands, and additional insurance,” she said.

Claycomb said as a community she hopes to use the parking lot at the Spring Dam Park better.

“We are seeing more interest with families coming down,” she said.

Igou was hoping once the borough building was up and running at the old Roaring Spring bottle building, that they would be able to have an event during National Night Out like in Duncansville does.

Council President James Musselman said he also recently asked about the carnival and was interested in looking at some ideas about how to make it happen.

“I think the town would thrive on that,” he said.

Musselman said after the paper mill caught on fire a few weeks ago, he talked to the owner of the property and was planning to be back on site in a couple of weeks.

“There is some onsite that might cause a problem if they don’t continue moving forward,” he said.

Musselman said the cause of the fire is still under investigation.

He said while there are parts of the building that still have power, however the area where the fire occurred was not one of them, and thought there was a human factor involved.

Musselman said there are cameras all over the property, but he is not sure how far the investigation will go if they don’t press charges.

He said all of the firefighters who were involved in fighting the fire had to send their gear to be cleaned to protect themselves from the possibility of having asbestos dust on them.

Musselman said there was a considerable amount of bags of lime which burned in the fire, and where they were stored in the building had no roof.

“We can’t tell them how fast or slow to tear it down, but if there is a public safety hazard involved we have more ability to say it needed to be taken care of,” Solicitor Larry Lashinsky said.

Members of the board agreed to get a meeting together with Taylor Township to make sure all of their needs met regarding the paper mill.