CONNOQUENESSING TWP — Supervisors are still set to appoint a person to the Connoquenessing Township Sewer Authority, because one member’s term expired at the end of January.

The supervisors appointed Laura Mason to the authority board in November to fill the term of another member who had resigned. That term expired, but the supervisors tabled the appointment of a new member at a January meeting and a meeting Wednesday, Feb. 1.

Several people spoke in support of Mason, and asked the supervisors to reappoint her to the authority for a full term. The supervisors did not have a motion on the agenda to make an appointment Wednesday, but supervisor Ricky Kradel said he is exploring other options for appointments and ideas for the township’s sewer plan.

“I have some other promising ideas that never materialized,” Kradel said. “They went down by the wayside, and now I still have issues.”

Supervisor chairman Terry Steinheiser said at the meeting that he would like to reappoint Mason, but would honor Kradel’s appeal to review other options.

Township solicitor Andrew Menchyk reiterated at the meeting that municipal administrators have to get a public sewage plan in place to present to the Department of Environmental Protection. Administrators have been working on a plan to install a sewage system in the township since October 2021.

“The DEP would like to see continual progress toward amending that plan, and making sure the township stays on track,” Menchyk said. “The DEP hasn’t given a time in terms of months, but the DEP did indicate to the township that the timeline was concerning, and there could be legal consequences if progress isn’t made.”

Lambert Rosenbaum, chairman of the sewer authority, also asked the supervisors to hold off on bringing the contracted engineer from Herbert, Rowland & Grubic to another meeting of the authority. He said he is getting information about applying for a county grant for the sewer authority to potentially get its own engineer.

“If it’s eligible, we would have to write the contract,” Rosenbaum said. “If we can get that (grant) and use that, why use your savings?”