A former Shenandoah councilwoman has filed an emergency petition for a special injunction to halt construction on a new Borough garage on the site of a park.
Katie Catizone – acting as her own attorney – filed the necessary paperwork with the Schuylkill County Court of Common Pleas on June 2. A hearing before Judge James Goodman is scheduled for June 12. The Borough, all council members (including recently resigned Joe Gawrylik), and Borough Manager Mike Cadau are all named as defendant parties.
Her filing asks Goodman to stop construction of a municipal garage at the site of Bicentennial Park along Herald Rd. Catizone contends that the 7.9 acres of land was sold to Shenandoah (for $1, essentially donated) by the Chamber of Commerce in 1970 under explicit orders that it only be used for recreation purposes. Violating that deal would revert ownership to the Chamber. Currently, the park is used by Shenandoah Girls Softball Association and the Jr. Blue Devils Football program for games and practices.
Catizone says the Borough deciding on April 21 (by way of a 6-0 vote) to construct a new garage on the site is in violation of those deed restrictions. She said it also violates Shenandoah’s 1966 ordinance establishing the Recreation Authority and therefore, the Borough Council has no right to authorize construction on the land.
“The Borough Council’s vote and acceptance for bids regarding the Borough’s stated intent to construct a non-recreational structure on the site constitutes a willful and deliberate attempt to violate the express conditions of the deed and deny the community full access to a dedicated park,” she writes.
At that April council meeting, members voted to award a $469,460 contract to erect the shell of a pole building garage. The total project cost will be about $1.4 million once the building is finished on the inside. It’s being built to house all Shenandoah’s vehicle fleet, including its municipal trash truck.
Catizone wants Goodman to rule that the construction on the garage be stopped, the land to be restored, and for the Borough to pay a $600 daily fine for vandalizing the space, per Shenandoah’s own ordinance, since construction began soon after the initial contract was awarded.
In response to Catizone’s filing, Cadau offered a no comment, as it were, to Coal Region Canary on Thursday night.
“Because it is a legal proceeding, we are preparing our case. At this time, we are not going to comment on this until we actually go through this legal process,” he says.
The goal of creating a new municipal garage is to replace an existing one, which is actually right next to the new one under construction, also on park land. The current garage was constructed in 2006 but Cadau says it has no heat, running water, and has actually cost the Borough enough money that Shenandoah can expect to see a return on this investment in five years, compared to if it continued to use the current garage.
In March, Shenandoah says it had to temporarily halt its solid waste removal service because rats at that garage had eaten through wires on the truck, grounding the operation. Rats in and around the garage, Cadau says, were a result of not being able to properly wash the Borough’s trash hauling truck after it had made its rounds.
That immediate problem was compounded by the current garage’s other shortcomings, Cadau says, like its lack of water and heat. Cadau says those lacking services resulted in lost money for the Borough due to paying employees for not working as they waited for diesel vehicles, in particular, to warm up on cold winter mornings and increased maintenance costs on vehicles.
Further, Cadau says the current garage is too small and didn’t house all the Borough’s equipment.
“They would spend an hour just to heat up the equipment,” Cadau says, adding that the new construction is a means of “ensuring the equipment that was purchased for the borough is maintained in an efficient manner.”
Renovating the existing garage was not feasible either, he adds. If the Borough were to increase the size of garage bays on that 2006 structure, it would cut into the softball field.
“We’re correcting and writing a wrong,” Cadau said Thursday.
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