Jefferson Township supervisor comes to Saxonburg to discuss Constitution Avenue
SAXONBURG — A Jefferson Township supervisor appeared at a Saxonburg borough council meeting Monday night, Oct. 15, to discuss reaching an intergovernmental agreement on how to maintain and police Constitution Avenue, a road which crosses through both municipalities.
“At this point in time, I think it would behoove us all to try to update and come up with a good agreement somewhere along the line,” Jefferson Supervisor John Cypher said.
The road runs from east to west, with one lane of the road in Saxonburg and the other in Jefferson Township — except for a 300-yard stretch on the east end which is entirely located in Jefferson Township.
According to Cypher, maintenance and policing of the road is dictated by a series of loose and sometimes unwritten agreements between the two municipalities that date back as far as the 1950s.
In November 1991, Saxonburg adopted Ordinance 364, a municipal police cooperative agreement between Saxonburg and Jefferson Township.
“In a nutshell, if Saxonburg police desired, it gave them permission to ticket someone anywhere on Constitution,” Cypher said. “It gave (them) permission to ticket someone. It allowed them under the law to write a ticket.”
Another agreement, which dates back to 1955, states that Saxonburg would be permitted to dump gravel on the southern half of the road, while Jefferson Township would dump its gravel on the northern half.
The issue came up when a resident of Saxonburg came to speak at a Jefferson Township meeting in September. The resident mentioned a problem with construction workers parking their vehicles on the road, among other issues.
Although this speaker wasn’t a resident of the township — and technically shouldn’t have been allowed to comment at a Jefferson meeting — Cypher said he agreed to take the matter into consideration, as it does involve the township in some way.
While no action was taken on the matter at Tuesday night’s Saxonburg council meeting, Cypher suggested an agreement as soon as possible to handle any issues that take place along the road and how to determined which municipality foots the bill for them.
“If there’s a pothole, is it in the middle, or is it on the south side, or is it the north side?” Cypher said. “Those things, I think, need some update and good discussion.”
