At Coplay Borough Council’s workshop meeting April 2, Engineer Daniel Witczak presented the latest round of bids on the Saylor Park renovations that the borough has been working on for three years. Even with reductions in the scope of the project, the total cost may be too high.

The park has been billed as the centerpiece of the borough’s 150th anniversary, which kicks off Saturday. See schedule of events at right.

The new estimated total cost is $720,000 with some contingencies, down from the prior million-dollar-plus bid. The expected cost was $550,000. The borough received grants for $300,000 and expected to match the grant funding with another $200,000. Even so, those funds still put the borough more than $200,000 short of where it needs to be.

Public works Director Paul Boyle has a conference call with the Department of Conservation and Natural Resources, which will coordinate the grants and ask the borough to show funding to complete the project based on the latest estimate.

The borough has a few options: It can take money from other projects like the proposed public works building on Bridge Street or it can borrow more money. Neither option is appealing to council.

The borough will ask that DCNR give the borough time to come up with a funding plan. A meeting is scheduled with council members 10 a.m. April 8. Councilman Stephen Burker pledged to do everything he can to move the project forward.

“I think if we don’t get this done now, it will never get done,” he said. “We have spent a lot of time and effort to get this done. We need to look at all the possibilities.”

In other business, borough Police Chief Vincent Genovese reported the consortium of municipalities testing police officer candidates will hold its first exam this month. Coplay joined with other municipalities to consolidate the testing and selection of police officer candidates. According to Genovese, there are 156 candidates competing for open positions in all the cooperating municipalities. He indicated 96 candidates were interested in positions in Coplay, but only 26 would meet the borough’s qualifications.

The fire department will hold an open house April 13. A local Girl Scout troop recently visited the station, took a tour and proclaimed the firefighters “hometown heroes.” The trophies were boxes of Girl Scout Cookies.

The borough’s new website, coplayborough.org, is getting good reviews. The webmaster reported the site receives more than 2,000 unique visitors a month.

Burker announced the borough purchased a digital information board for Community Plaza. The $25,000 cost was paid with funds from the 2018 Community Days celebration.