It is now unlawful for anyone to throw or dump grass and weeds onto any street, alley, gutter or sidewalk in Coplay. Fines for doing so begin at $100 and increase to as much as $600 for repeated offienses.

A council vote on the new ordinance at Tuesday's Coplay Borough Council meeting was 6-1, with Councilman William Leiner Jr. opposed.

A regulation already in place states property owners must not let grass, weeds or vegetation grow past 6 inches.

A question was raised on what happens when a resident has a 6-foot privacy fence.

Coplay Solicitor James Preston said if the borough receives a complaint from a resident stating a neighbor has grass over six inches that is visible, it will be checked into. The resident filing the complaint has to give the borough access to their own property so inspectors can see from that resident's viewpoint, if there is in fact overgrown grass in a neighbor's yard.

In other business, Councilman David Royer presented the estimates he received from McHugh Services for a new boiler for the Coplay municipal building. Royer said the new gas boiler alone will cost $196,996, and if they must pay the prevailing wage for installation, it would cost about $240,000.

Royer emphasized this estimate is for the purchase and installation of the boiler alone and not removal of the old boiler or installation of any additional piping or other systems.

Council President Louis Bodish suggested getting estimates from a few other companies.

Councilman Charles Sodl questioned the advisability of investing that amount of money into the aging building, once a school.

"To spend $250,000 to heat the place? And that's just the boiler," said Sodl. He also mentioned that the building has other deficiencies that will have to be fixed.

"It sounds like we're at the beginning of the process of looking at some real numbers at what we can and cannot do," Leiner said. "At some point you've got to look, buildings are buildings. If you're unwilling to take measures to raise the money, you look at alternatives within the community. We're at the beginning of the process.

"When you're living at home and you can't afford your house, your big house that you raised all your kids in ..."

"OK, get a small house," Sodl said, finishing Leiner's sentence. "With that thought, where should we go?"

"As I said Mr. Sodl, we're at the beginning of the process," countered Leiner.

This argument caused Bodish to mention the fact that Leiner was completely opposed to switching buildings a few years back when council started to discuss the costs of fixing the municipal building.

"I'm looking forward, not three years ago, five years ago, 10 years ago," said Leiner.

Royer ended the conversation by saying that the most economical thing would be to have companies come in and give estimates.