The township Municipal Sewer Authority has gifted $500,000 toward the project as a 60th anniversary gift.
All it took was the enthusiasm and happiness of a young softball player, and her considerate “thank you” during public comment – to sway one or two Montgomery Township Supervisors who were on the fence Monday night about funding as much as $175,000 toward a new $675,000-estimated, non-budgeted, girls’ ADA-accessible pre-fabricated bathroom at Rose Twig Park, complete with electricity and a handicapped-accessible parking spot next to it.
In the end, supervisors voted unanimously to fund the project, $500,000 of which is coming as a gift from the township Municipal Sewer Authority on its 60th anniversary.
Had the township decided to not fund the project Monday night, the sewer authority would have recommended to their board at a special meeting on Tuesday, Oct. 1 to reject bids for the plan.
“It seems to me, the opportunity here that you are offering us $500,000 to make this happen for one of our parks is such a huge gift that you’re giving us,” said Supervisor Beth Staab. “The investment we have to make in this is something, unfortunately, we didn’t anticipate. We don’t want to seem ungrateful. It’s hard to say (what to do), as we want to be stewards of our budgets.”
With the approval vote, the township Municipal Sewer Authority can now accept bids at its Oct. 1 meeting, and fund the first $500,000 in costs for the project. The MSA will also absorb the costs of its engineer, CKS Engineers, for an accessibility review of adding a parking spot next to the restroom, around $25,000.
“In celebration of our 60th Anniversary, the Sewer Authority had decided they would like to give some kind of gift to the township in recognition of being an Authority for 60 years, being a member of the community, begin a partner with all of you,” said authority Executive Director Shannon Drosnock, who was previously the township’s finance director. “Several ideas were wrestled around and this idea of putting a bathroom in one of the parks came up.”
Drosnock said the Rose Twig section of Windlestrae Park was chosen as the prime location, near the street hockey courts and softball field. At present, there is a restroom in the William F. Maule section of the park.
She said during the budget process at the sewer authority, the rough estimate came in of $575,000 to install a resrtroom.
“We went to the sewer authority board and said, ok, what is your comfort level, in terms of a donation to the township? And the sewer authority had a hardline comfort level of $500,000. We said that’s how we would move forward, not knowing what the bids would come in at,” Drosnock said.
When the township administration was approached about the project, and covering the differential, Drosnock said the township liked the option to consider funding the project and asked the authority to put out bids.
“The bids came back somewhere in the neighborhood of $650,000, for total project costs,” Drosnock said. “We won’t have hard costs for the project until it happens.”
The restroom would need sewer lines and electricity to be an all-season restroom, she said.
Drosnock said Sewer Authority liaison Supervisor Tanya Bamford came back to the Sewer Authority to ask for an additional $100,000.
“The sewer authority board was not in a position to do that,” she said. “Specifically, because our feeling on it was, this is already outside our scope. This isn’t a sewer project.”
Drosnock said the pre-fabricated restroom has already been secured through the COSTARS program and the deposit is done.
“If the township decides not to fund the project, the Sewer Authority would be exposed for the amount of the deposit and we would abandon the project,” Drosnock said.
“You bought this and didn’t know if it would go forward?” asked Supervisor Annette Long, who was one supervisor on the fence about the funding.
“We were in a pickle, timing-wise,” Drosnock said. “There’s a build-out time to building the restroom, so the only way to coordinate it, if we want the project to move forward, is by having the building done in time, and at the same time, we are legally constrained by bid documents. So we wanted to secure the building in advance of the bid documents, or you would be pushing it another year out to be able to do it.”
Long said it came down to finance and the affordability of the $175,000 or $200,000. She said supervisors want to see something there that would benefit all those that use the park, including joggers, runners, softball and baseball players, and soccer players.
“Where is the bottom line and how do we come up with that?” Long said.
Bamford said the township has had money earmarked for such a project in the capital fund.
“I don’t know if it was $175,000,” Bamford said, “but clearly we anticipated that we may need to fund a portion of this.”
Outgoing Finance Director Brian Shapiro said he was not a part of the conversations behind funding the project.
“At the end of the day, projects are approved by the Board of Supervisors. I present the budget to you. The current capital investment plan is not funded past 2026,” Shapiro said. “This project wasn’t included. So the board, to answer bluntly, has two options in this scenario: either cut projects or raise additional revenues to fund future projects.”
Shapiro said the township raised taxes at the beginning of 2024 to help fund current capital investment plans.
“Based on the 5-year plan, by 2026-27, to help with the current infrastructure to maintain and do other projects as planned, there has to be some other discussions on that by the board,” he said.
Drosnock said, when this was mentioned to township Manager Carolyn McCreary – who was absent from the meeting – she “had it in her head” that a $175,000 figure was necessary on the township’s end.
Bamford said McCreary told her there would be no negative impact on the budget.
There will be a caveat to the new restroom – a third-party would need to be hired to maintain it, as Township Public Works Director Greg Reiff refuses to subject his employees to the horrid cleanup situations they have faced at the restrooms at Spring Valley and William F. Maule parks.
“We’ve had issues, and I’ve brought them up at the park board as well, with not-so-nice conditions that guys have had to clean in there. That’s the nicest way to put it,” Reiff said. “We’ve considered locking some of the bathrooms because of conditions we’ve been up against.”
Reiff said there are worse bathroom issues at Maule than Spring Valley Park.
“So, at some point, we may need to look into a company, because I don’t feel quite right asking our guys to go in and maintain some of the conditions we go up against,” Reiff said, adding it is hard to tell which events result in the worst conditions, as there are no security cameras at the park.
“The one at Windlestrae does lock, but it’s open pretty late because of the lights. It could be happening in the early morning, but we’re not sure,” he said.
Parks and Recreation Chairman, and Montgomery Township Baseball & Softball Association President, Jeremy Dombroski, said during a public comment period on the matter, that he asked other MTBSA parents and players to come out Monday in support of the project.
“As you can see, there are many members here of the MTBSA community. Many are softball players, coaches, board members, and families in this community. We keep on talking about our softball community, and we are trying to build that back up … (we) didn’t have a softball program (for a time),” Dombroski said. “It’s the youth of the program and township members and community members that want to support that. We have other members that use that park.”
He said with soccer games, hockey games, basketball games, playgrounds and the like, it will not be just the MTBSA that would enjoy a bathroom there.
“Members cross Kenas Road to use family members’ homes for the bathroom. It’s not safe,” he said. “To have a bathroom in that location – we understand it is an expense to the township and it’s a great gift from the sewer authority and we can’t thank you enough for that – it would be huge.”
Other parents suggested rotating signage recognizing donors who may end up supporting the restroom project.
Supervisors Chair Candyce Chimera asked Dombroski to go back to the MTBSA board and consider a small fee -- no more than $5 -- to go back toward the maintenance of the restrooms. Dombroski said a similar recommendation was enacted by the MTBSA board in the past, but never enforced. He said it is something the Board would reconsider to help the township.
“I move that we go ahead and approve this,” said Chimera. “We thank the sewer authority for their generous gift, and we will spend the rest of the money that we need to make this a finished project for all the families involved.”
