FEB. 20, 2006

MINUTES OF THE FEBRUARY 20, 2006 MEETING OF THE PLANNING COMMISSION

The Hamburg Planning Commission met this evening in the Council Chambers of the Hamburg Municipal Center with Chairman Roy Heffner presiding. The meeting was called to order at 6:00 p.m.

MEMBERS PRESENT: Roy R. Heffner, Dale R. Schlenker, Sylvia S. Summons, Neven J. Dries (arrived 6:15 p.m.), Heather A. Breininger, Richard W. Boyd, Lori M. Guldin (arrived 6:02 p.m.)

MEMBERS ABSENT: None

ALSO PRESENT: Maria Herne-Pottsville Republican, Andy Muller, Jr., ThermanMadeira, Ken Schaner-Forino Co. (arrived 6:51 p.m.), Greg Kohl (arrived 7:00 p.m.), Tammy Wilkinson-Council President, Jessica Schnur-SDE (arrived 7:01 p.m.), Ralph Melone (arrived 6:22 p.m.), Graysha Harris (arrived 6:22 p.m.), Deena Kershner, John Leonforte-Building Inspector, Denise L. Clare-Secretary

A motion was made by Rick Boyd and seconded by Heather Breininger to accept the January minutes as presented.

ROLL CALL: Ayes- Heffner, Schlenker, Summons, Dries, Breininger, Boyd, Guldin

Nayes- None

VISITORS

Andy Muller and Therman Madeira were in attendance regarding the Reading & Northern Railroad coming through Hamburg.

Andy Muller: I didn’t really prepare much of a presentation since this has been going on for quite a while I assume most of you know…you know I can address a bunch of those questions or…whatever you want me to do, I’m flexible. I mean…have any of you heard our presentation before? We made them, you know, when Cabela’s came here.

Roy Heffner: I have.

Andy Muller: You know, nothing’s really changed and nothing’s really happened, you know, we’re just hanging out, trying to see what we can do.

Roy Heffner: Right, here’s what we had from previous years.

Neven Dries: Are you in a hurry?

Andy Muller: Does everyone pretty much know what we want to do or would you like me to just talk a little about the whole plan?

Roy Heffner: Just take a few minutes to just go over it. Cause I know Tammy wasn’t here for the original…

Andy Muller: Alright. Well, for those of you who don’t know me…back in 1983, I bought my first railroad. I used to be a school teacher. Got in the railroad business in 1983…in the last

20 years my company has basically acquired everything between Reading and Scranton. Our main line of the railroad is on the other side of the river in West Hamburg for those of you that’s the old Reading railroad and it’s 127 miles from Reading to Scranton. We have over 100 employees. We’ve moved the equivalent of about 500,000 truckloads of freight a year. I don’t think most people in Hamburg really realize…by the way, I’m from Hamburg, went to Hamburg High School and I used to be a school teacher. I taught the kids with…but anyhow, as railroads go, we’re a…we’re a small railroad. 315 miles and when Cabela’s moved into Hamburg my first comments on that were…let’s fine the state of Pennsylvania and get all the state tax revenues and that will be great for traffic but I know darn well it wasn’t gonna do a thing for Hamburg and so I just has an idea about how possibly to get people from Cabela’s and other people into Hamburg. I’m born and raised here, Hamburg has been very good to me, I made most of my money before the railroad business buying and selling rare coins basically bought every coin collection in Hamburg that came up for sale from all the old people I knew. So Hamburg has been good to me and you know, I just had some ideas over the years where there’s things I’d like to do that I think would be good for the town. The Borough Council from years ago when Ray Yerger was on and Dale, I guess you were on at that time too with…

Dale Schlenker: No.

Andy Muller: Those guys were great to me, you know, basically, whatever I wanted to do they cooperated. The railroad should have never been torn out through Hamburg. The problem is, what happened years ago when the railroad companies got into trouble they were looking to make money and, of course, steel is very valuable so in 1979 the track in town was torn out. I wasn’t even in business yet and, of course, the people in Hamburg had no experience with this they didn’t know how to deal with the Pennsylvania Railroad so it got removed. It should have never been removed. What’s interesting is basically in 25 years since it’s been torn out, very little has been built in the right-of-way. So in my mind I saw an opportunity to put this back. But, it’s a project that’s a long-term type of project. It’s gonna take community involvement, it’s gonna take people that want to do it, you know, the railroad can only do so much. I mean one of the things in this particular situation…I like to do projects and just for an example right now my company is putting in a $5 million bridge over the Lehigh River at Jim Thorpe. And again, for a small railroad that’s a big project. But it’s what I like to do and the Hamburg project would really be a challenge but it’s doable. So I guess the first thing that people have to decide is do they want to see Hamburg improve? You know, better jobs, more people coming in…I’m sure there’s plenty of people in Hamburg that are just happy to see it right the way it is, you know, they don’t want all the tourists, you know. So I think the first thing you have to decide is do you want to see Hamburg improve? I think a lot of you have been to Jim Thorpe and you’ve seen what they’ve done up there, for those of you who have been up there. I own the railroad through Jim Thorpe that’s part of our main line. We don’t come into town, the track does but our main line goes out around the outside of town. But Therman, Therman Madeira who works with me runs the passenger train up there. We took it over this year, I’ve had the railroad for a while, but we just took the passenger over this year. We have about what…what about 27,000 people, it’s really not a money maker. We do this whole thing for public relations. Obviously we’d rather move coal. But it’s just good for overall presentation because railroads…because of the nature of…they compete with highways have to rely on state grants occasionally for railroad ties. So we are very politically active and we do a lot of things, you know, just so the average person knows what we’re doing and appreciates what we’re doing and that’s been the case and all the local politicians from Argall to Brightbill support me. One of the things that’s important to keep in mind is, believe it or not, money is not scarce. If you do a project that people with the money want to have done. So little communities generally are not equipped a lot of the times, like Philadelphia and Pittsburgh, a lot of them get these grants and are not equivalent to match the money and that’s the kind of thing that the railroad could help the community with or work with the community. My little railroad company alone gets a couple million dollars a year in grants from the state of PA because Governor Rendell and the state of PA in general are looking for great transportation projects to do. I mean, if you come up with a project going into Hamburg with a trolley and with my reputation and with my dealing with the state it’s a natural winner. It’s really not hard to get the support for it. Like I said, this $5 million bridge that we’re putting across the Lehigh River is probably the first major railroad bridge to be built in PA on any railroad for many, many years. They fixed a lot of bridges but new bridges are actually very, very beautiful and we’ve got Governor Rendell all signed up for that and he’s ready to go. We’re doing…we’re applying for the permits and just to give you an idea how easy this is if you know what you’re doing and the way things have changed…when I come to meetings to do things, you know, I’m a little skeptical sometimes if the people want to support it, and do the agencies want it. Last week we in…we’re in the permitting process for this bridge over the Lehigh River, this is not only on a scenic river it’s also on the edge of a state park. We own a lot of land in Lehigh Woods State Park and Hickory Run State Park. When I bought the railroad and got all this land… So you’d think that doing a project in a state park and over a river like that would be really something…and then, you know, but the meeting we had last week is everybody is so on board for transportation projects we basically don’t even need a permit for this bridge. The Coast Guard is in charge of the river and the only thing we need a permit for is they want to know what we are going to do with the fill when we put the pylons in. The Army Corp of Engineers is going to issue a national permit, has already issued a national permit which covers what we are doing so we don’t need a permit with them. The historical people are on board because they like what I do with the railroad, with passenger trains and like that. So when I first got this bridge I thought it was going to be like a really big deal and…and it’s really not. I believe the same thing is gonna happen in town here. One thing that is very important to remember that this is a long-term project. Nobody can make any money on this, including all of you and all the other people in town for quite a number of years. Jim Thorpe started in 1983 when they first started purchasing housing and things like that and looked at tourism and they’re only starting to be successful 22 years later. So this is what you’re looking at, what you do is you gotta get people on board that are willing to make a commitment for basically very little return that want to do something for the community knowing that the long-term return could be fantastic. That’s what we’re up against here. Sometimes the comment’s made well Muller’s gonna make more money. Well I do make a lot of money, that’s what I do. But this is a particular project that would cost me millions out of my own pocket if I decide to do it on top of what the state, everybody else would put in. It’s very, very difficult to make money on passenger projects. But again, it’s my hometown and I’ve seen Cabela’s come into town…and I don’t know what that’s done for Hamburg, I haven’t done a study on it but the bottom line is if you want to have a gimmick to get them here. I think Therman’s handed out a bunch of articles on all these places that are putting trolleys in and record rider ship and what they are doing for hundreds of millions of dollars. I’ve been doing this town for…we estimated $7 million to start, I mean inflation is so bad that it will probably be $14 million. Every year you wait it’s gonna cost more. But, that’s really the bottom line on this and the only way you’re going to get Cabela’s to come into Hamburg is to have a neat looking trolley that sits in front of the door and leaves every half an hour and brings them into Hamburg. Then you’re gonna have to tear a couple of buildings down in downtown and get some parking. I can go into a lot of things that Therman and I have ideas over the years for Hamburg that doesn’t ever seem to happen. This town needs parking. You can’t give people parking tickets when they come into town to visit. They don’t get them at the mall. So if this trolley comes into town you gotta make room. So that’s basically the bottom line. Otherwise it’s going to be very, very difficult because Hamburg is like any other community and everybody’s going after tourism. That’s the new thing. You’re not gonna get steel plants anymore and you’re not gonna get, you know…We got Wissahickon Water now and we’re hoping they’re gonna do a resins plant here. We’re hoping to serve them with plastics. But really tourism is really hot. What you need to think about and the thing that would make Hamburg unique, wouldn’t make them unique, but it would make the unique in small towns is something like this trolley. Like I said I guess I’m open to any questions or anything else you’d like to know or…

Roy Heffner: Do you have a copy of the letter with you that was sent to you with questions?

Andy Muller: You know what? I have a copy of the letter but no glasses.

Roy Heffner: We could just go down the questions as quickly…or whatever you can answer and if any of the committee here has any questions at any time, you know, raise them as we go along.

Andy Muller: I think the first step in the process is for Hamburg, you know, and working with a number of people but real estate most of it that we would need for this railroad is in the hands of people that I believe we could obtain it. One of the problems is unless you go for actual passenger money, which we don’t get, we get freight moneys from the state, from the freight end of it they require the land be under your control before they’ll help you with this. Now, so that makes it a little bit of a problem but most of the land in town here other than one or two spots isn’t worth much anyhow relatively speaking. What we had talked about, we need to have a committee from Hamburg to make sure that this is expanded. That it’s not an Andy Muller project. That it’s a community project that people want to do and I’m just the guy that has the experience to try to help get it done. Because we don’t want to make this project personal. What we want to do is we want something everybody in the community would like to see. Acquiring the real estate would be the number one thing. I can, maybe at a future meeting, go over each parcel of land as I see. I’ve broken it all up. I know who owns it, I know where it’s at and I think it’s acquirable. One of the things that the railroad does have the ability to do is condemn properties. But believe it or not we could come in and condemn this property. We’ve never done that because we don’t want to do that. I don’t believe in taking somebody else’s land from them even though the highway departments do it all the time. But if you got all the land but one property you could finish the project. One person generally won’t stop this, but what I feel is if you talk to the landowners and you work with them and if we get state help to do this you get them enough money that they are willing to do something for the community. Obviously they want to benefit too, most people in Hamburg are not rich enough to be giving something away and I understand that. So you try to make it profitable for the people that have the land too. So that’s where that goes. Ok, number 1. What safety measurers are proposed at each rail/street crossing? What physical barriers will be used at all crossings to minimize access of auto and truck? In Pennsylvania the rails have absolutely no authority over crossings. Crossings are completely controlled by the public Utilities Commission. So for example, if we and again with the record that our railroad company has, if we file an application to cross 2 or 3 streets in Hamburg the PUC grant this without a doubt. I know all the people there, they love projects like this, this is a great project. One of the problems is when it comes to Federal 130 money, which is the money that pays for gates and flashers, there’s a lot of communities going after it. So the people in Hamburg have a committee and make sure that Argall and Brightbill and all the guys that represent us know that we need to have these protected. In Hamburg what you’d like to see, originally there were flashers on State Street. I think there were flashers on Grand Street and the one or no…the one on the next street down then Grand Street with cross bucks. Again, if you really want to do this the laws in Pennsylvania are that if you come up to a railroad you’re supposed to stop, and get out of your car and wreck and loiter. I mean, that’s the law. So if you get hit by a train if the railroad doesn’t want to pay you they’re not gonna pay you. Most of the time when we hit somebody we try to give them something cause we feel worse than they do. We don’t like hurting people. But most of the time they didn’t stop. SO in Hamburg what you would do is we would apply for permits to cross the 3 streets that we would need to cross, I think it’s 3 maybe 4, and the Public Utilities Commission would order what gets done there. What you do is you go there and you talk to them off the record to make sure they don’t order the town to pay for gates and flashers. Generally what happens is the town gets hit for 10% for gates and flashers. It costs about $100,000 a crossing. Generally, if we’re with a cooperative town that works with us…we have a lot of towns that work with us all of the time if some towns aren’t as cooperative…the ones that are cooperative we pay the 10% and the town doesn’t pay anything. So it’s a federal/state 90%. You’re dealing with a railroad here, if the people don’t stop they get hit. If they stop they don’t get hit. It’s not rocket science and we would do what the PUC told us to do. But I think it’s no risk to the community. The community assumes no liability, no risk. This is one of the reasons that we will not put a penny into grade crossing protection because if we want to be good guys and pay for it the railroad had no liability unless the stuff malfunctions or we’re extremely negligent. I mean from out point of view we have hundreds of these crossings and we have lots of them that are only protected by cross bucks, stop signs, advanced warning…you know, so the bottom line to this thing when you go to try to do this you try to get as much money as you can for the protection. But if you don’t get it, just put cross bucks up and people will stop. I mean that’s the thing. Number 2. That’s a Public Utilities Commission condition. The equipment is maintained buy the railroad. This is something we take on because we don’t want anybody else touching it. It costs us $2,800 a year to maintain a crossing that’s electric. So that’s what we figure it costs us and we maintain that. Like I said we have hundreds of them. We have full-time people that do that. So that’s nothing. Number 4. We’re responsible for the inspection, the maintenance. Number 5. Must the train sound a horse, yeah, a horn at each crossing? Yes, it’s federal law that the long, short and a long. It’s a bell and a whistle at each crossing. How often will tourist/freight trains operate, weekly, monthly? Who knows. I just had a meeting with the Nesquehoning Borough Council. There’s been very few trains through Nesquehoning over the last couple of years and now we’re putting 4 a day through Nesquehoning and of course, some of the people love it, some of the people hate it and some of the people we don’t care, you know what I mean. Quite frankly, we try to get along in the communities but we have a right to do it and we run whatever trains there are to run. From the tourists side at Jim Thorpe right now we’re running weekends at 11, 1 and 3. So start in Hamburg, because to start this up it’s not a money maker, you know, but we would run the trains at 11, 1, and 3, let’s say for example on Saturdays and Sundays. If you talk about really doing this right and we got a trolley going to Cabela’s, I mean who knows? I can tell you this, people ride this stuff. The interesting thing about tourist railroads is that very few people will drive somewhere to rise a train. But if they’re there very few people won’t ride it. It’s really an interesting statistic. So we don’t do any advertising outside of Jim Thorpe at all. We do everything in the community. We rely on the community to attract the people. When they get there, we haul them. But we can’t go out and advertise in Colorado for people to come in and ride the train. Cabela’s whatever the numbers are for Cabela’s they’re all there. So you have like a natural audience. This is suck a no-brainer it, you know, from my experience the last 20 years that…ok. So freight trains, I don’t know, right now on the west side of the railroad we’re running about 2-4 trains a day between Reading and Tamaqua. The speed on those trains is between 30-40 miles and hour generally 30. Again that’s all subject to business. With these high oil prices we are so busy, we are growing so fast that I wouldn’t even want to predict the future on how large this railroad’s gonna get. I mean, we’re gonna be huge. We just have new customers everyday. So that’s hard to say. Whatever it is, you know, one thing we refuse to do is make it new in the community we run trains when we can. We run them…and that’s something you have to understand. If we have a crew and the train’s there that train’s gonna run. So if Hamburg doesn’t want trains running whenever they’re running then you need to kill it, you know. Because that’s what’s gonna happen because we don’t deal with the community, in other words basically it’s like the state highway. If the trucks going he’s gonna go by. So we don’t make any guarantees or promises on that.

Rick Boyd: Would you run the coal as a preference through Hamburg versus the other…

Andy Muller: Probably not. The Reading line is probably is the way most things would go. But who know the future for railroads are so bright that, you know, I mean I look at my own situation and I just got into this in 1983, I mean for those of you that don’t know when I started I basically wasn’t working at the time, I was semi-retired and they wanted to tear up the railroad in Hamburg and I thought well you shouldn’t tear this thing up this is wrong. Well I couldn’t stop them through town but I bought from…from the ore into Hamburg into Temple in 1983 and that’s how I got started. Well since then, like I say, it’s just… You can’t even buy railroads anymore because now they’re not for sale. There was just like a 15 year window, you could buy them. You can’t buy them anymore. So again, we wouldn’t promise we have trains to run and it’s single track on the other side and ones coming north and we have one to go south, we have all automatic electronic dispatching all controlled out of Port Clinton. If any of you would ever like to tour to see how we do things…we do everything first class. Where we got high paying jobs if you work for the railroad we have complete 100% health care and it goes on and on and on. So, we provide good jobs, not mick jobs. Jobs that would occur in Hamburg on account of this railroad would be good jobs. But if any of you would like a tour of the railroad, for example we…our dispatchers can sit at a table and throw a switch, and those of you who know what a switch is where the train goes different directions we can throw a switch. In Scranton from our house in Port Clinton, it’s pretty incredible. This addition of track, this little passenger trail from Tilden to Hamburg. I have no idea, these things are such huge projects. They are trying to bring it from New York to

Scranton. Senator Specter’s supposedly involved in that and if you have any foresight at all you gotta say to yourself that sooner or later we need mass transit. I don’t know when. One of the reasons we’ve had such great success with the state of Pennsylvania and the politicians is because our rail is basically open for anything. If they get this passenger from Philadelphia to Reading they need to run that to Scranton to run that to Pottsville. You know I don’t know if I’ll live to see that but…especially those high oil prices, and for those of you who follow this with the way the Chinese are buying things. Things aren’t going down, so this is gonna get worse. So I don’t know I can’t really comment on that, you know, I don’t know if I’ll live long to see it, it’s coming. It’s coming everywhere. What safety measures will there be for pedestrian traffic at crossings throughout the Borough? Hopefully common sense. I mean you know what, you know we hit people once in a while, not too often but we have people that try to commit suicide on the railroad occasionally. We try to send then to the Norfolk-Southern. I mean we don’t really. We have full-time police, we’re very strict. We arrest people that drive on the property, we don’t allow 4 wheelers, we’re not real strict on people that walk it on the railroad because a lot of people like to walk along the railroad which is reasonable but it’s against the law. The federal law is very clear you’re not allowed on the property. You go on the property, you’re breaking the law. We do the best we can, but again we take care of as many people as we can. We can’t take care of the whole world.

Rick Boyd: Would you consider fence along the tracks?

Andy Muller: Only if you’re gonna pay for it. I wouldn’t, no. You know on that…first of all that detracts from the whole scene.

Rick Boyd: Well you might be thinking chain link when we’re just thinking…

Andy Muller: Well certainly anything that someone else is willing to pay for we’re gonna look at. We’re not interested in spending a penny more than what’s necessary to get the job done because again this is a loser for me in the first place. It’s something I like to do and I’m willing to do it but I’m not gonna, you know there’s 50,000 miles of railroads in this country and virtually none of it’s fenced other than the northeast corridor and they go 200…what do they go about?

Therman Madeira: 180 miles an hour.

Andy Muller: I don’t want to be cruel I sort of believe in this, people just have to take care of themselves. I just can’t take care of everybody. Now there’s certain things you can do some nice antique fencing, there’s certain things you can do. What we like to do is since we do carry some passengers on the parts of the railroad we’re really, really flexible. We’ve never told anybody our insurance company don’t allow anything. If you want to climb up on one of our locomotives, you know within reason. We want people to come on these tours and have a good experience. You know there’s nothing worse…you know if you go to Disneyland do you ever notice they never tell you you can’t do it? They just build it so it’s inconvenient for you to do it. You know I just don’t like people saying, well I can’t rely on this because my insurance companies don’t tell me what to do. So I’m a little different animal when it comes to that. The railroad through Hamburg would be the railroad like it was the first time. You know if somebody wants to pay for fencing for whatever reason that would be up to them. But it wouldn’t be something that we have any interest at all in.

Rick Boyd: Andy, how big would the right-of-way need to be?

Andy Muller: Historically the single track right-of-way’s are about 30’. Which wouldn’t be a problem here because this was all at least 60 coming through here. So we acquired half of it. The thing is…one of the things is we have to maintain this railroad. One of the ways that we would do this so that we could afford this, we do a lot of it with used materials. Because the price of everything has gone crazy. They tell you there’s no inflation but the people who say it on TV I don’t know where they shop. For us things are going through the roof, everything we buy. Which I’m sure that community has been finding that too. So we just use materials on a lot of our next construction project and then of course you have to start to maintain them pretty much immediately or the next couple of years. So when we need to have that room to get to it. One thing you don’t want to do is have to get permission from a neighbor to go fix your own property. You can probably get away with a little bit less than 30’, you know if you had to but that’s really what it should be. You know you talk about the safety of children and all that kind of stuff. I mean at 30 miles an hour which is generally as fast as we run the trains I don’t…you’d have to decide, I don’t know. All over the world there’s kids along the railroad. All the towns have railroads and so on.

Deena Kershner: In reference to the black bridge is that the only one over the river? The black bridge, that’s the one that runs over the river.

Roy Heffner: I think that’s the one they refer to.

Deena Kershner: Well you had mentioned before that that would be separate there’d still be a walkway back.

Andy Muller: We had the option to buy that bridge if we wanted. What would have to be done there is the walkway would be separate from the railroad. Probably hanging out on the side of the bridge. There’s so much money for this available. We…I mentioned the $5 million bridge we’re putting over the river now. We just finished another bridge over the river. The bridge was there up near Jim Thorpe, just like Hamburg but the trucks were removed and it was a double track bridge and so what we’re doing up in Jim Thorpe is we put the railroad on in 2003 and this year DCNR is putting a walkway alongside the railroad and immediately on the bridge we are fencing that. But somebody else is willing to pay for that. Let me tell you what happens with this. Believe it or not, as hard as it is for little communities to get money on certain things in the state of Pennsylvania see you doing a transportation project were you act like you’re really excited about it and you want to do something for the community and you’re really in on it. It’s amazing how they get behind you. When we went up to do this bridge at Jim Thorpe there was absolutely no money available and from 2000 to 2003 I put up about a million and a half of my own money and the state put up a million and a half of its money and this thing is gonna be beautiful. You can walk all the way, if you feel like it, from Wilkes-Barre eventually down to Philadelphia and then to Bristol. I mean down to Allentown then down to Bristol and one of the highlights in this area is Jim Thorpe with the parks and everything the railroad’s done in combination with DCNR. We also have a track record of being very, very cooperative. 17 miles of the land between Wilkes-Barre and White Haven I sold to DCNR for the trail. So they have a hard time saying no to me when I want to do something because without me there’s no trails. We’re doing the same thing on the side here with the greenways coming out which I think is named for the territory.

Unknown: Which is nice. I think somebody took your sign down over there. Wasn’t there a sign over there? I looked the other day and it was gone.

Andy Muller: But we’re providing a lot of the right-of-ways for the trails between Reading and Pottsville. So it’s very difficult for the state to say no when I want to do something and that’s a big advantage to the community because not a lot of communities have that condition. What volume of freight will be moved in the Borough? Quite frankly I hope a 100 trains a day, night and day. But it’s not very likely it’s gonna be a lot of traffic to start. I mean it’s a business like anything else. It’s an alternate route to Reading. If we do this and this thing is gonna be running trolleys on a regular basis from Cabela’s, which I believe it could be, and I believe once this thing is set up it actually could make money. Once it’s all…you know the $10 million out in to build it, that’s what kills you. If it was here it’s probably a money maker, if you’re running a trolley mostly every hour you’re not gonna see freight trains in the middle of those trolleys if the railroad or somebody’s making money running trolleys. So it would be more likely that if any trains came down the side they would more likely come at night. Because during the day you would want to run trolleys and I see this if you’re running every hour this takes…like I said what you should do is pay attention to the newspaper when you’re just reading and look at all the communities that are doing this. It’s incredible and the success is just amazing. Number 12. It would be beneficial for the Borough and the Planning Commission to have a current plan…you know what? I’m not looking for a job with all due respect I’m not looking for a job. What I want is the community’s involvement to do this and I want to get the money and help you build it. For a plan this…for those of you who are over 40 years old, this is cut and dry. The railroad was here it’s just a matter of putting it back. This isn’t rocket science. So as far as a plan, you know I’m not a paperwork kind of guy. I mean that’s why I’m successful. I talk about it after it’s done. That’s why it’s very difficult for me to be involved in a project. Railroad companies need no permits for anything, generally. Generally you’re not subject to zoning and when we build buildings, we don’t even get permits for the building if we get any obstruction from the comminute. We’ll give them the information for a permit and if we don’t have the permit immediately we build it. We’re not technically subject because the bottom line is we do a better job on our construction then. Because we have our own people we do it ourselves and everything I put in Port Clinton we asked Tilden for a permit and we couldn’t get a permit and we got our money back and we built it. Railroads are in a very unique position because the federal government in its wisdom a 1`00 years ago realized that is we had to answer to every one of the 100 communities that we go through we couldn’t get anything done. So this particular circumstance in Hamburg what you gotta recognize is that you’re going to be partners with the railroad to get this done and certainly any information you want you’re gonna get but we’re not gonna apply for a permit like putting a porch on. We’re just not gonna do it. So that’s where the community has to be on board. So that’s something that’s very, very something. You really have to think of it you really want it. I just bought a ranch in Nebraska, out there you don’t have to get a permit for anything. I’m building a house out there and didn’t have to get a permit which is really nice. But probably in another 10 years they’ll need a permit out there too. But so far I don’t need to get a permit. So anyhow, I don’t mean that to be disrespectful of anything like that but we need to get this done. I estimated the cost of this thing a couple of years ago at about $7 or $8 million. You’re looking at double now. That’s how bad inflation is. We’re looking at double. I mean you all see it with you’re oil bills. The longer we wait the more difficult this is gonna be to do. The first step is acquiring the properties and that’s gonna be a community effort.

Lori Guldin: In Port Clinton, their little league, their baseball diamond…didn’t you sell them that for a dollar?

Andy Muller: I gave it to them. We’ve given away millions of dollars worth of property. I own all of it so I guess I can say I’ve given it away. We try to really work with the community and I think we have a good record with all the communities. But, yeah, we gave then that filed.

Rick Boyd: Andy, can you be more specific on what you’re looking…I get the general feeling on what you want when you say about getting the community on board and acquiring the properties. Can you be more specific as to what you’re thinking?

Andy Muller: Let me tell you what some of the other counties have done. In the 1970’s, and if I get too long with it just raise your hand. Because I don’t want to keep you here all night, nut there’s a lot to this. Generally what some of the other communities have done when they were gonna tear out the railroads for example, in Scranton in Luzerne County in Wilkes-Barre those people were just a little bit ahead of where we were in Hamburg at the time. They didn’t want to lose their railroads so what they did was start a railroad authority like a water authority. That rail authority, those of you who know something about authorities, after the county commissioners designate then as an authority they basically become their own thing. With the ability to do all kinds of things and what they did in these communities is they came in and they made a deal with the Lackawanna Railroad ion Scranton, the Lehigh Valley in Wilkes-Barre, wherever the community was and they bought these railroad outright. Then they went and got government grants to work on these railroads and to repair them and they floated bonds to get the matching money for the grants. State budgets $40 million for Scranton rail projects. Have any of you guys ridden the trolley up in Steamtown yet? Ok, right there, that’s it right there. Scranton has a really smart administration that knows where the money is. So what I suggested to Hamburg…a couple of things. Number 1, you need to find people in town that has some interest in trains because you want them to like to do this. Once it becomes a job nobody’s gonna want to do it. Like I said I’m not looking for a job, I’m doing this cause I like it, it’s fun for me. Then you form a rail authority and then that rail authority as I see it should make clear that this is not an Andy Muller project. I want to be a big part of it. I’m born and raised in Hamburg. Some people like me, some people don’t like me, some people don’t care and I don’t want to deal with that. What I want them to do is do it for the community. Then that rail authority starts visiting the people that have control of the land. Because, I believe, that most people will cooperate with this. The ones that won’t you just give them enough money that they do. Then, for example, we’ve already got the land because the historical society, which by the way I lent them the money to buy the museum down there if you don’t know that, we got the land past Penn Steel and we got the land all the way up to where the gas tank sits right in the middle which is…used to be UGI, I guess it’s owned by Met-Edge Abstract now. There’s no doubt in my mind if the community went to Met-Edge Abstract we need you to move that tank and we’d like a right-of-way through there I would be very., very surprised if they wouldn’t be on board. If they’re not on board then we have Senator Brightbill go visit them. Senator Brightbill is totally on board for whatever I want to do as is Dave Argall. You can speak to them personally. Cause I won’t speak for them but these guys are good friends of mine.

Rick Boyd: You’re looking then that the authority would purchase to acquire the properties?

Andy Muller: Not necessarily. I would prefer if it would be a Hamburg project but…see one of the things is Chip Vaughn down there…one of the things that’s right is we don’t have a lot of access to passenger money. If you form a rail authority that gives Hamburg access to passenger authority. There’s different kind of rules for railroads and communities. The problem that little communities have is they don’t have the expertise, they don’t have the money to do it and then they have a problem with the match money, which is where the railroad can help you. But the bottom line is you would have to access to hopefully passenger moneys. Where hopefully we can go to somebody like Chip Vaughn at Fairmount who really if he has rail service he would use it but it’s just mort big enough that he can make any investment. So what we do we go to Chip Vaughn and we apply for a grant to work the railroad up into his place. Then the 30% that Chip would have to put in, I would put in. The state would put in 70. I mean they’re giving money like…Alcoa just got grants to put in a new track in Cressona. Now come on, Alcoa needs money like they need a hole in the head. They’re giving the money out like water for railroads, it’s just there. So that’s where to start. It really wouldn’t matter who would own the land. If the community…not to interrupt but do you know what really is a great idea? Talk the people into doing it for the community and lease it for 99 years. Then give the railroad the right to do something with it.

Rick Boyd: That’s a legitimate approach. But still I come back to are you looking for the authority and its ability to acquire the land and use its bond issue, at very low percentages to swing the whole deal?

Andy Muller: Yeah and well I think…

Rick Boyd: And that’s critical. I mean…

Andy Muller: I think it’s flexible. Here’s what you have to realize. These guys that got into rail authorities in Lackawanna County, Luzerne County, these rail authorities are making a profit. Salarying themselves $60,000 $70,000 a year for the head guy that runs over in Lackawanna. He gets 70 some thousand a year to do it. There’s money in this. Because transportation is so hot. You’re literally sitting on a gold mine here. But again it doesn’t happen overnight and it’s gonna be hard for any of us to make money at it. It’s something your kids are gonna do well with or your grandchildren or whoever with their stores in the community and things like that. But either way, for example, if you went down to the guy that has the packing place, I think Batez his last name is, now I haven’t visited any of these people but I think I have a pretty good feel if you want down to this guy and I own a piece of property in back of him that he would probably like to have and he said you know we need an easement cause he owns the land where the railroad wanted the bridge and you need 20-30’ through there. I think the guy would cooperate. I’d be surprised if he wouldn’t. So then you’d have to decide does the authority want to hold deed to the land, you want the railroad to hold deed to it…to me it doesn’t matter. The only thing I want the right is, obviously when we build we want to run on it. I mean if you had the authority in Lackawanna County they’ve done such a good job, they’re all making a ton of money on it, they’re getting tremendous amounts of state subsidy and the authority owns the trolley line and they’re running it. It depends on how far you want to go with it. Since this is not a many maker for me I’m not gonna fight with anybody that doesn’t want to be involved with this as long as everybody works together and knows what they’re doing. Like I said I’ve already talked with Chip Vaughn. He promised me he said that I will not stop this if you need that land, that’s what he told me. Now what people do when you actually come to them and want them to sign their name, that’s a whole different story. We talked to Daryl at the lumber yard. He seems to be on board of he’s treated fairly. We already got the bridge.

Rick Boyd: I believe you’ve looked at this in a very detailed manner going back to like 4 years ago and the key thing then you wanted was the authority and I’m still…

Andy Muller: What to own the property?

Rick Boyd: The authority to allow for the low financing of some of the project. But the transportation authority the most economical route to approach the issue.

Andy Muller: Why I’d say from a passenger point of view it would give up that angle. It’s a little difficult for me to get passenger money on my own. I can get the freight money and then we use Chip Vaughn and now Wissahickon Water, they’re telling us they want rail service in there. Those 2 things right there could get a lot of the railroad done and then the rail authority would also apply for money. I mean we have the potential of getting some freight customers with Wissahickon Water and possibly even with Chip Vaughn who buys scraps and he gets in some other things. We are going to be very flexible in funding. We are in a positions of…, you know what I’m saying?

Rick Boyd: Chip doesn’t move that much freight. Chip’s total output is l4ess then what Pennsylvania Steel was.

Andy Muller: Oh it’s very small, but see here’s the thing…

Rick Boyd: They were only 1 railcar a week in scrap.

Andy Muller: But see they was this is working in the state of Pennsylvania they are just looking for rail projects. All you have to do is do what you tell them you’re going to do. Is Chip says he can take 1 car a month, it’s a start. It’s really not that difficult really. The thing is your getting into something that’s hot right now that people with the money want to do. Let me move on here because I guess you guys have something else to do here. We are at number 13 I guess?

Secretary: Yeah

Andy Muller: Number 13. Most of our trains on the other side are 40-60 carloads sometimes we run a hundred. Freight’s not gonna be a big factor over here. Number 14. It’s been said there’d be 5 grade crossings. We already talked about that. To me, in my mind, they only one that’s critical that probably should have electric protection would be State Street. The other streets in town if you just put up cross bucks to get started… You don want to burn yourself with $140,000 worth of expense.

Rick Boyd: I think one of the things the planning needs to consider is that right now there are 5 should there be 5 if the train runs through. I can make a reasonable argument that 2 of them should go away.

Andy Muller: Well you know what’s interesting? If you had a railroad going through town now they would pay you to take those streets out. The federal government is paying communities to take streets out of railroad crossings cause they want to remove them. We have not had a good track record at that. We’ve been trying to get Tamaqua to remove some crossings. For some reason in the area we operate it’s like they need a crossing every 3’. Out west the Burlington-Northern has removed hundreds of grade crossings in communities have gotten millions of dollars in free money to take these grade crossings out.

John Leonforte: I wasn’t going to bring this up till like the very end. How receptive would the railroad be to us with the railroad providing another railroad crossing, street railroad crossing? What we’re looking at is we’re trying to get a truck route, a developed truck route, so we’re looking at 4 different projects in the Borough to try to get trucks in and out of the industrial area without bringing them through other parts of the town. The one area that we’re looking at is your underpass under 61. How receptive would the railroad be to bringing…extending South 3rd Street across your tracks under 61 to hook up with Station Road?

Andy Muller: The big railroads will not participate with the short lines on containers. They all get trucked to Harrisburg and get loaded over there. They want 100 car trains they won’t even deal with us on those. We don’t move a single container.

John Leonforte: Ok, so how receptive would you be to us doing that?

Andy Muller: Well that’s a difficult project because…I mean everything’s negotiable but it’s a difficult project. You’re talking megabucks to do that. First of all if you gotta move that railroad yard…I mean everything’s on the table. That’s an area that we’re not doing a whole lot with. Right now I’ve given to the historical society for a dollar to rent. Probably not very receptive to it if the states not involved. Because the money not going to be there. These projects are…

John Leonforte: I’m not saying that we’re not gonna try and acquire money from the state. We’re not asking you to pay for it.

Andy Muller: No, I understand.

John Leonforte: We’re asking for you to say yes your street can cross our tracks.

Andy Muller: Again, it’s something that has to be looked at. If we’re gonna be running trolleys to the museum and all that it wouldn’t even go down that far. Like I said what happens there if the state decides they want to do it and they want to fund it they’ll make it worthwhile for us to cooperate. We moved railroad yards from Tontanna about 5 years ago and they took care of us on that. If the state wasn’t s to do it they will find a way to do it. We’re involved in a route 54 project, for those of you that are familiar, but Tamaqua and Jim Thorpe were there. I haven’t seen the plans on this but they’re lifting about 4,000’ of railroad 3’ in the air. For whatever reason to get over sewer lines and things like that. I’m not sure cause I’m not involved with that my people are doing that and they make sure that we’re dully compensated for whatever. Yeah, it’s on the table but that’s a very expensive project to do that. How would you get down there in the first place?

John Leonforte: Well really what we’re looking at is getting trucks out initially we’re not sure we can get them in.

Andy Muller: But I mean how would you even get down there?

John Leonforte: From South 3rd. We would have to do a feasibility study.

Andy Muller: Just come right down over the hill and go under the bridge.

John Leonforte: I mean you could drive along side of your tracks now. Whether there’s 28’ there or 30’ that’s what we need. You might have to move a track.

Andy Muller: That’s really that railroad yard would have to go. What we’ve done there one of the things railroads try to do is to transload like sugar and things like that and we’ve had numerous opportunities where we thought we were going to put customers there, we never have. That’s what that yard is sitting there waiting for somebody that doesn’t have, an industry that doesn’t have rail siding to transload some. We just haven’t been successful with that. If you want to put a highway through there the whole yard would have to go. I mean like I said if the state wants to do that… Like I said they talked to us 5 years ago about that and we said hey we’re willing to listen.

Lori Guldin: Is the state paying for the feasibility study?

John Leonforte: There is no feasibility study for that portion of it. We haven’t committed to a feasibility study. We didn’t want to commit to a feasibility study till we heard from the railroad. We have feasibility studies on 2 other parts of the 4 part project.

Rick Boyd: Can I ask you a couple more…the trolley and passenger, have you had any discussions with Tilden about the trolley and recent conversations with Tilden Township about the trolley?

Andy Muller: No.

It’s really not my recollection that they came in…

Andy Muller: no, Judy’s over there now. Here’s my thing you have to understand how my mind works. When I get involved in a project that I want to do for the community I don’t want to be tortured. That girl over there she’s a wacko and I don’t mind saying it. I don’t deal with that. I don’t want to be bothered. Now what we’ve done is we got people over there that want to do things and all we have to do is go sit and talk to them. That’s not a necessary part of this project because we’re not that interested in going into Tilden Township right now.

Rick Boyd: But when you talk about Cabela’s and the trolley that is…

Andy Muller: That should be the long-term step.

Rick Boyd: That’s one of the potentials.

Andy Muller: See there’s some issues in Tilden Township also with the land over there that may not be what they appear. But no, we have no doubt in our minds that we could do business with Tilden Township. The people that are over there now will want to do business when the time comes.

Rick Boyd: You ran passenger sojourns and the like out of South Hamburg. Could you talk about a little bit what happened there and why?

Andy Muller: Well I guess it goes back to common early on I wasted a million dollars there is what I did there. People will not drive to ride a passenger train generally. Not enough that you can make a profit at it. If we didn’t have Cabela’s here it be very difficult to try and sell this to anybody in that as far as trying to build something like this. But with Cabela’s you got the people on board. Berks County just doesn’t have the tourism…it’s not Lancaster County, it’s just not. People got to understand in Lancaster County you got a group of interested people that started in the 50’s. Cause like Jim Thorpe started like in the early 80’s and so I made this comment to Dale Schlenker a couple of times we talked, you gotta start somewhere. But it’s a long stroll.

Rick Boyd: You still have the station at the plant in Temple?

Andy Muller: Yeah.

Rick Boyd: I know when the discussions were held before there was serious interest in Argall and Allen and Rhoades on the line going into about as far as passenger service. This is an option that light rail could be run from Temple up to St. Clair.

Andy Muller: Absolutely.

Rick Boyd: This is the only length that prevents it?

Andy Muller: Yeah because the railroad on the other side of the river doesn’t go through to many towns. One thing that is really unfortunate the railroad, they’re trying to bring the passengers out of Philadelphia, they tore the old passenger line out the line that’s tore out here is torn out below Temple and then it’s torn out… If that would stay in that would be a natural. But these guys talked about this stuff all the time the problem is it’s such a big project. They’re talking billions when they do these things. Everybody just gets to the point where it’s hopeless. That’s why you start small and do something in Hamburg here and people see this stuff.

Rick Boyd: But the only open link is through Hamburg?

Andy Muller: Well the railroad runs down the other side of the river.

Rick Boyd: Light rail passenger track? On the Pennsy lines it’s in through the town Schuylkill Haven, Cressona, St. Clair, Pottsville…

Andy Muller: Doesn’t quite go into St. Clair anymore that’s why it’s torn out. We got in to Yuengling Brewery that’s about as close as we get to St. Clair.

Rick Boyd: So there’s a substantial out there?

Andy Muller: You can conceivably go at this link… If this pink link gets put in here you could conceivably go from apparently Temple Station down in Tuckerton Station and the Berylco plant that used to be down there you could go to Steamtown or Mahooten, Pennsylvania.

Rick Boyd: Would you consider those types of runs? Would that be in the realm of a railroad transportation authority?

Andy Muller: It could be. The problem is right now that people in the state still are not jumping out of their cars to ride trains. You’re a real long way off on that. As far as getting people to ride those trains. People are married to their cars. This is something that’s got to be a matter of time, if ever, I don’t know.

Rick Boyd: Cause one of the things I see is your station here. The Borough owns that property on State Street but even locating a down sized station that’s not a good area for parking. You need to go a little bit farther down to the railroad museum or something like that they have what could conceivably be good, adequate parking there. But then you’ve got someplace that you can go.

Andy Muller: Remember now we’re not gonna be, I mean I guess we’d get some of this but we’re trying to bring the people from outside of town in. Parking is always a problem. We suggested years ago buy a couple of these buildings and tear them down and make free parking, but it just doesn’t seem to happen.

Rick Boyd: The farther, particularly the upper end, Temple’s not terribly far, but particularly the upper end, that you can promote bring…getting on the train and go to Hamburg.

Andy Muller: That’s a selling point. But you gotta remember this, you want to drop them off as close to the stores as you can. The population is aged and the ones who ride these trains are the older people and you want to drop; them right in town. That’s why we’re talking of running the trolley right up the main street.

Lori Guldin: What about holiday runs? They run holiday runs and that would take…I know somebody is buying a lot near our house which is going to be parking which he is going to be running something to get people down. You have to stop thinking of yourself as a little person… It’s not a competition it’s cooperation.

Andy Muller: Putting the line back into Pottsville in 1986 I spent a million dollars to do that.

Roy Heffner: Andy I think we’d like to wrap up this portion unless someone has significant questions that they need to have answered. If not, I thank both of you gentlemen. We’ll definitely consider this. We got most of our answers that we’re looking for.

Jessica Schnur from Systems Design Engineering, Inc. was in attendance regarding Port Clinton’s Act 537 plan and their tying into the Hamburg Sewer System. Roy Heffner asked why the Planning Commission needs to be involved with this. Jessica Schnur stated that the Planning Commission needs to be involved because the lines are coming through theBorough and into the WWTP. All entities involved must sign off. The options are to run the lines down Route 61 and tie into the Tilden Township collection system or to have the lines come down Port Clinton Avenue and tie into the manhole at William Street (this is the chosen option). It would be a 4" force main. Rick Boyd asked what the flows would be. Jessica Schnur stated that Port Clinton would be allowed 45,000 gpd but at the beginning would only be about 20,000 gpd. Roy Heffner stated that the roadway must be retuned to the same condition it was before digging. Rick Boyd asked about servicing Waterloo and Mountain Avenue since the line will run through those areas. It should be recommended to

the Hamburg Municipal Authority to extend the gravity feed line to Mountain Avenue from William Street.

A motion was made by Rick Boyd and seconded by Neven Dries to recommend Port Clinton’s Act 537 plan as favorable to Borough Council.

ROLL CALL: Ayes- Heffner, Schlenker, Summons, Dries, Breininger, Boyd, Guldin

Nayes- None

Ralph Melone from Melone Architects out of Wilkes-Barre was in attendance regarding the former Wright’s building on Pine Street at Peach Alley. The oldest section of the building is being worked on first. It will be converted to apartments for seniors. Half of the building will be torn down. Most of the building is in a flood zone but the building grade is higher than the floodway. The first floor is 4’ higher than base flood elevations. A variance will be needed to build in the floodway. With a certification the basement can also be used. A recommendation from the Planning Commission is needed. There will be 2 parking spaces as required for each apartment. Senior apartments are generally 1 space per unit. A variance will also be needed for this. 3,600 sq.ft. of open space per apartment is required but only 1,200 sq.ft. is what is available. These will be 1 bedroom apartments (see floor plan). Rick Boyd asked how many levels there will be. Ralph Melone stated that there will be 2 floors of apartments.

A motion was made by Sylvia Summons and seconded by Dale Schlenker to approve the 3 points as presented and have the project proceed.

ROLL CALL: Ayes- Heffner, Schlenker, Summons, Dries, Breininger, Boyd, Guldin

Nayes- None

Ken Schnader from Forino Co. was in attendance regarding the Bickel Subdivision in Windsor Township which a small portion is in Hamburg Borough. They are seeking a waiver on having the Hamburg Planning Commission review the plans. The original plans are being scrapped. The Planning Commission needs to sign off on the waiver as will Borough Council.

A motion was made by Neven Dries and seconded by Heather Breininger to sign off on the Bickel Subdivision plans.

ROLL CALL: Ayes- Heffner, Schlenker, Summons, Dries, Breininger, Boyd, Guldin

Nayes- None

Greg Kohl was in attendance regarding the Weidman Subdivision. The property is at the SE corner of South 4th Street and Woodland Road. Mr. Weidman would like to divide the self-storage buildings off from the office building. The self-storage buildings will be sold to a 3rd party. The GVC review letter was gone over. The 1"=40’ scale is allowed and does notrequire a waiver. Water/sewer is not needed on lot 2 (storage facility). John Leonforte stated that no water/sewer issues need to be addressed at this point. When Mr. Weidman comes back in the future to extend the offices water/sewer connections will be taken care of. A note will be added to the plans that the use for lot 2 will remain the same or it will be subject to the land development ordinance.

A motion was made by Dale Schlenker and seconded by Sylvia Summons to allow the developer to proceed with the plans and that the Planning Commission has no objections.

ROLL CALL: Ayes- Heffner, Schlenker, Summons, Dries, Breininger, Boyd, Guldin

Nayes- None

A note will be added that any development on lot 1 will have to go through land development.

OLD BUSINESS

Truck Traffic Questionnaire-Roy Heffner stated that 26 of the 49 surveys sent were returned.

A proposed truck route drawing was handed out. There are 4 areas that could be an improvement for truck traffic. Wissahickon Water is willing to donate land for Grand Street to continue west of Front Street to Route 61. A feasibility study will have to be done and submitted to Penn Dot. This will cost $5,000-$8,000 to do. Wissahickon is willing to pay up to $8,000. A traffic light or jug handle may also be done. South 3rd Street could be

extended to Station Road if a jug handle could not be done on the west side of Route 61. The South 4th Street & Route 61 intersection is being looked at. John Leonforte explained the 2 options that have been submitted. The drawings were reviewed and John Leonforte explained the differences between the 2. If anyone has any suggestions or comments on this, please get them to John Leonforte this week.

Blueprint Community-Deena Kershner stated that the handout everyone received does not include housing. Deena Kershner stated that there is a good chance Hamburg will be getting a strategic land officer. This project must get going or lots of money will be lost. The Borough and Planning Commission needs to support the plan. Anyone can write grants for their group, Blueprint supplies the sources. Blueprint is looking for cooperation and communication. We need to move forward with the redevelopment area. Dale Schlenker stated that this years elections could cause a loss of money. A workshop to discuss redevelopment only will be help on February 22 from 6:30-8:00 p.m.

Railroad Project-Dale Schlenker stated that the presentation earlier is the 3rd one that has been presented. Should the town stay the same, die out or move forward? Dale Schlenker is in favor of the railroad but it will be a long, drawn out affair. No pain, no gain. Dale Schlenker does not agree with Andy Muller’s and approaching the owners of the properties to see if they are alright with the project. Andy Muller will not knock on doors, he will help but he doesn’t need it.

Berks Economic Development is willing to work with the railroad as well which may eliminate the need for a transportation authority. Rick Boyd stated a reason for having a transportation authority is because of the low cost loans they can obtain.

John Leonforte suggested making a list of pros and cons for the railroad project.

NEW BUSINESS

None

CORRESPONDENCE

None

There being no further business, and on motion of Sylvia Summons and seconded by Heather Breininger the meeting adjourned at 8:57 p.m.

ATTEST:

Denise L. Clare, Secretary