Photo by Joseph Bell Elk County commissioner Daniel R. Freeburg, center, reviews his agenda along with fellow commissioners Ronald T. Beimel, right, and June H. Sorg.

By Joseph Bell

Staff Writer

With funds available for next year's Community Development Block Grant (CDBG) projects, the Elk County commissioners approved recommendations for the tentative projects yesterday during their board meeting.

"There were no public concerns or comments with any of the projects," said Tracy D. Gerber, who serves as CDBG coordinator. "The Johnsonburg Borough Community Center will be to resurface the floors in the swimming pool area with cushioned tiles.

"The 2009 money is being used for the locker rooms of the pool area. So we're going to finish off around the floor with a cushioned mold-resistant type tile around the pool."

The alloted amount for the Johnsonburg Borough Community Center is to be $11,331.

The other tentative projects include work at the Fox Township Senior Center, Jones Township Senior Center, Bennett's Valley Senior Center and Elk County Housing Rehabilitation.

"With the Fox Township Senior Center, a few years ago, a parcel of land was purchased for additional parking for the facility," Gerber said of the $64,000 project. "This money will be used to put in lighting, concrete, stairway and storm water management paving for the parking lot.

"Jones Township Senior Center is to lower the ceiling in the additional two activity rooms. It's for heat loss and that sort of thing."

The alloted amount for the Jones Township Senior Center is $11,500. There is $57,718 dedicated to the Bennett's Valley Senior Center to fund the payment of anticipated loans.

"Hopefully, this will be our final payment due for building the senior center down in Bennett's Valley," Gerber said. "The remaining part of the grant is approximate and will depend on how everything else comes out.

"We're going to use the remaining money for rehabilitation and the HOME program to rehabilitate low income properties within Elk County."

Approximately $55,451 has been alloted for rehabilitation.

Elsewhere, officials from the county's sheriff's office hope to soon update their computer system to better handle their sales, which have grown as of late.

"We've been using the same DOS (Disk Operating System)-based software in our office for 26 years," Elk County sheriff Jeffrey C. Krieg said. "That was fine back in the day when we had one sheriff's sale a month.

"We're already booked up until May of next year because of the economic blight."

Last year, the office handled over $1 million in fees and costs.

"It got critical last month as I explained to the county commissioners and chief clerk that our system actually stopped working," Krieg said. "DOS just does not have a large memory and we couldn't put in any more entries, and we started to have to go on to the next month's entries and that would become an accounting nightmare.

"This company is one of three individual companies that make software just for sheriff's offices. It prints your affidavits, your checks, your 3X5 cards, it's pretty much going to absolutely streamline our office."

The funds used to purchase the software from Sheriff Sales Software & Services, Inc. will come out of the Records Improvement Fund.

"There are certain fees in relation to the Register and Recorder's office, and Pete (Weidenboerner) told me that he dumps anywhere between $800 and $1,100 a month into this fund.

"This fund has now accumulated nearly $50,000."

The allocation was approved unanimously at a Records Storage and Management meeting.

"It sounds like a good system that will put (the sheriff's office) back in good shape," Elk County commissioner Daniel R. Freeburg said. "Unfortunately, the demand is due to the times."