Southeast Butler County municipalities discussing joint comprehensive plan
JEFFERSON TWP — Five municipalities located in the southeast corner of Butler County — Jefferson, Winfield, Clinton and Buffalo townships and Saxonburg — have entered preliminary discussions about creating a multi-municipality comprehensive plan.
These discussions have been led by Scott Docherty, owner of steel building manufacturer CID Associates in Buffalo Township. Also involved are Butler County Planning Commission chairman Mark Gordon, as well as Joe Saeler, executive director of the Community Development Corporation of Butler County.
According to Docherty, two meetings have taken place so far — one on Oct. 3 and the other on Oct. 30 — both at the CID Associates building in Buffalo Township. A third meeting is scheduled Dec. 2.
“We plan to be unified with one voice in a comprehensive plan moving forward,” Docherty said in an email to the Butler Eagle.
Docherty said three of the municipalities have already agreed to the idea, but he would not clarify which ones.
“(We are) only waiting on votes from the other township board members to say ‘yes’ or ‘no,’” Docherty said. “Then we will move to have a MOU (memorandum of understanding) in place done by attorney Don Graham’s office.”
Donald Graham is an attorney at the law firm Dillon, McCandless, King, Coulter & Graham.
“At this time, I don’t want to say who is in,” Docherty said. “We need to respect their privacy. Their boards have to vote on this plan.”
Jefferson Township Supervisor Lois Rankin attended the Oct. 30 meeting on behalf of her township.
“Joe Saeler was there, and he thinks he can get a lot of money if everyone would join together, and it would cost the township hardly anything at all to get in,” Rankin said at the Jefferson Township supervisors’ meeting Monday. “They were throwing numbers out there that maybe it would cost $5,000 or $6,000 for the township to do it.”
Another goal of the multi-municipal comprehensive plan, according to Rankin, is to share and distribute the costs of developing the plan among multiple municipalities.
Penn and Middlesex townships were specifically excluded from the discussions. Both have recently finished their own comprehensive plans — a process which took each municipality over a year.
“We do not consider Penn or Middlesex as part of the true southeast corner of Butler County,” Docherty said. “They have different needs and wants than us.”
During Jefferson Township’s meeting on Monday night, it was noted that the township hadn’t updated its comprehensive plan in roughly 20 years. Meanwhile, Saxonburg began the process of updating its own comprehensive plan last August.
Clinton and Buffalo townships entered into a joint comprehensive plan in 2017.
