[0:00] Start before I do something

[0:04] to the flag of the United States of America and to the republic stands one

[0:10] nation indivisible with liberty andice for all.

[0:29] None.

[0:32] » Looking for a motion to approve the minutes of meeting dated August 11th,

[0:37] 2026.

[0:44] » All in favor signify by saying I. >> I. Motion carries. I consider a motion

[0:50] to approve the actual invoices in the amount 1,356,926

[0:58] and 58 cents for a period of August 6th through August 21st, 2026.

[1:05] » So move second that roll, please. >> Mr. Humes,

[1:09] » yes. >> Mr. North,

[1:10] » yes. >> Mr. Bart,

[1:12] » yes.

[1:16] Looking for a motion to approve the actual payroll in the amount of

[1:18] $323,8227

[1:22] for the period of July 26th through August 8, 2026.

[1:27] » I like to make that motion. Second call.

[1:32] » Mr. Humes. >> Yes.

[1:33] » Mr. North. >> Yes.

[1:35] » Mr. Farj

[1:40] for a motion to adopt the right to know policy.

[1:46] I'll make the motion. I'll second that.

[1:52] » Do you have any comments, Sage? >> Um, sure. So, we uh created the policy

[2:01] for right to know requests and um have added some further information on our

[2:06] county website just for the general public when they are requesting

[2:12] information and how to do that.

[2:16] » And I should introduce Angie. She is the right to know officer for the county.

[2:21] Thank you. >> Uh all in favor signify by saying I.

[2:29] Looking for a motion to enter into an agreement with the Office of Medical

[2:33] Assistant Transportation Program. Terms of said programs will be July 1st, 2026

[2:40] through June 30, 2027. >> I'd like to make that motion second.

[2:48] And we are honored to have Misty here today to have a few comments on this

[2:56] for the housing >> the medical assistance.

[3:03] » Um so we have an agreement with the county that the county receives funding

[3:07] from DHS for the medical assistance program and then the county passes those

[3:12] funds to us at Community Action to administer and have a the medical system

[3:19] transportation program. So, um I have Kim Hutchkins with me and she is our

[3:24] medical system transportation administrator and she can tell you a

[3:27] little bit more about the program. So, um for the consumers to qualify for our

[3:32] program, they have to live in Jefferson County and they have to um have medical

[3:36] assistance. We transport um consumers to like doctor's offices,armacies,

[3:44] um any place that they're going that they're going to be billing the medical

[3:47] assistance. We have um subcontractors with Health Ride and APA to do the

[3:54] transportation. We also have the mileage reimbursement program as excuse me as

[3:59] well when consumers have a private vehicle that they can drive themselves.

[4:04] » Thank you. >> You're welcome. Thank you.

[4:09] Yes, >> Mr. Hughes.

[4:11] » Yes, >> Mr. North.

[4:12] » Yes, >> Mr. Parchic.

[4:13] » Yes. >> And before we move forward, I'm going to

[4:18] ask Misty to just talk about the homeless grant money that you just

[4:23] received. >> Yes. So, we um money for the homeless

[4:28] assistance program comes again to the county. It is to um community action and

[4:34] we use those funds to assist lowincome residents of Jefferson County with um

[4:40] any kind of eviction notice or utility shut off or if they are homeless so we

[4:45] can assist them in finding um housing or um avoid their utility shut off which

[4:50] then could lead to homelessness. Any questions?

[4:57] » One, if they're homeless, how do you find

[5:00] these people? >> There sometimes they're referred to us

[5:05] from community members where they just come to us directly.

[5:12] » Come to us where >> at our office of community action where

[5:15] they call.

[5:19] » I'm thinking most of us don't have a phone.

[5:23] » They do. They do.

[5:27] » There are government programs that provide cell phones. So, a lot of times

[5:30] homeless people may have a cell phone through a government program.

[5:35] » Yeah. No phones.

[5:39] » You can't have other cell phone. >> No, I guess not.

[5:42] » Becoming essential. >> And I'm sorry, where's your office?

[5:47] » We have um an office in. It's across from the Cookville. Okay.

[5:55] We served on Jefferson in Fairing County.

[6:09] Any other questions before? Thank you both for coming.

[6:15] Uh, next we have Jim Schwarney, director of North Central Health.

[6:22] » I'll give you a quick update on a couple of um projects that we have going right

[6:26] now or applications that we're working on. Uh, first is a uh EDA disaster

[6:32] recovery grant. Um, the initial application was right around $65

[6:37] million. Um it would be for a center of innovation um that would be hosted in

[6:44] Dubo Jeff or Clearfield County. Um it's basically to um work with our PM and

[6:52] advanced manufacturers within the region. It'll be a uh training school

[6:57] research and development um and they'll have state-of-the-art equipment there

[7:02] that um will be able to be used by the industry to to advance uh products. So,

[7:08] uh, we're in the final stages of it right now. We're expecting to hear as to

[7:13] whether or not we're successful with the application here, uh, later this fall.

[7:18] Um, one of the other projects that we've been involved with is the rural health

[7:23] transformation grant. Um, we're not actually with the initial dispersements

[7:28] that have gone out here recently, uh, through the rapid response funding. We

[7:33] haven't been part of that. of what we will be part of is when the regional uh

[7:38] policy specialist is hired for our region, they will be housed at the North

[7:42] Central offices. Uh we will be working with them to establish establish a rural

[7:47] care collaborative and set up the um the governance of that uh committee as well

[7:55] as then uh coming up with a plan for the region on addressing some of the issues

[8:00] that have already been identified in the state's plan and how we want to address

[8:05] them regionally. Um seven of the eight individuals have

[8:10] already been identified and announced. Unfortunately, our region is the only

[8:14] one that doesn't have the individual announced. We're still waiting for

[8:17] Governor Shapiro uh to give his uh acceptance of that individual. As I

[8:24] shared with Jeff, um as soon as we have that name of that individual, we will

[8:28] let everybody know and then we'll be reaching out to folks to start having

[8:32] conversations on who should be on that committee and um some of the ideas that

[8:39] we have regionally to uh to address some of the problems that we have. And last

[8:45] thing, just kind of a big thing for us uh here in October, we'll be turning 60

[8:50] years old as a as a commission. So, we're going to be celebrating that

[8:54] throughout the year.

[8:58] » Any questions for Jim?

[9:03] » Back. >> Oh, Mr. McGinness, please.

[9:08] » Thank you. Uh, Mr. Chairman, Mr. Swarm, I I have one question about the first

[9:14] program that you mentioned. >> Okay.

[9:16] » The $65 million program. >> Yes. What was the criteria that was used

[9:21] to headquarter this in Duboce? >> Well, it really what it boiled down to

[9:26] was um it was the only place that we found that had a building that was

[9:31] sufficient to house this facility and the buildings being donated. If it

[9:36] wasn't for that, the match would have been a significant issue given the

[9:40] dollar amount that we're requesting. And um we approached different people

[9:47] because they asked a very similar question, but no one was willing to

[9:49] donate a building. So if it wasn't for that building being

[9:55] donated, we probably the application probably wouldn't proceed because that

[9:59] is counting is a big chunk of our map. >> Thank you for the response.

[10:07] » Any other questions?

[10:10] » Next we have police laws in the department of

[10:16] development. >> So, I'm I'm going to email this to the

[10:20] press later so that you have an electronic copy, but Jefferson County is

[10:26] continuing to explore the process of developing a potential enactment of a

[10:30] subdivision and land development ordinance commonly called a salo.

[10:34] County planning commission, county officials, and staff and critical

[10:37] partners. We've been working all year to develop this draft salo and we'll be

[10:41] taking public comments on this. We have a meeting this Thursday at 6:00 p.m.

[10:47] here in this building on the first floor to review the draft salo and receive

[10:51] public feedback. That work session will provide attendees with the opportunity

[10:55] to better understand what the proposed ordinance does and does not do, what it

[11:00] regulates, how those regulations would work, and to provide comments and

[11:04] suggestions on the draft ordinance. Anyone who's not able to attend that

[11:08] meeting can provide comment between now and Thursday at close of business either

[11:13] by email or here in writing in the commissioner's office. We have a copy of

[11:18] the salo available up front here or you can review it on our website. Something

[11:22] important to note is that while the county recognizes high impact land

[11:26] developments such as solar farms, data centers, and similar developments are a

[11:30] significant concern for many entities, the salo includes a wide variety of

[11:34] regulations intended to support healthy and responsible development. So we

[11:38] encourage anyone who reviews that document to be attentive to all aspects

[11:42] of the document and the public work session will focus on all aspects of the

[11:46] ordinance. If anyone has any questions, I will be

[11:50] around after the meeting. I will email this to the press and I have business

[11:54] cards if anyone wants to provide comment by email.

[12:00] » Any questions?

[12:07] » In reading over the draft ordinance, um you devoted like one paragraph to data

[12:13] center specifically and that was just a description of what they are. Is it your

[12:17] intent that the blanket statement of land use covers the data centers, solar

[12:23] farms, etc.? >> They're being referred to as high impact

[12:26] land developments because this is not zoning. We cannot dictate whether they

[12:30] come here or not. We're just trying to encourage healthy development for those

[12:34] specific facilities. >> So, your blanket statement will cover

[12:37] all these high use developments. >> That's to be seen.

[12:41] » Yeah. To be seen. It's it's still under development. So, we don't know what the

[12:46] final product's going to be. >> Okay. Well, I'm just addressing the

[12:50] draft at this point. >> I believe it's a full section in a

[12:55] couple of pages if I'm not mistaken that refer to high impact land.

[12:59] » Yeah. I just want to be straight you might get a question about that

[13:04] Thursday. >> Our consultant will be there Thursday

[13:06] and he is the one with the knowledge and expertise on most of this.

[13:12] » Thank you. Thank you.

[13:17] Mr. Cer, do you have anything on? >> I I do not. My time will come in the

[13:23] near future. >> Just now yesterday was just so happy

[13:29] birthday. >> It's very long. It's not great.

[13:35] » Moving on. Bridget, do you >> I do I just have a question. It's my

[13:40] understanding that there's only one election board

[13:46] meeting on the calendar and it's in midocctober.

[13:50] » There's one in October and there's one >> then there'll be one after the election.

[13:54] Yeah. Okay. So, just as far as um the Supreme Court ruling that came down

[14:00] yesterday where they're pushing the whole you USPS will not deliver mail and

[14:06] ballots thing down the road. My question is if you have a contingency plan to

[14:10] address this is we're only 70 days out from the election. So is there going

[14:17] would there be an emergency meeting in that case? Do you have a contingency

[14:20] plan on whether the um Supreme Court actually says they can

[14:26] not deliver ballots to the states that don't turn over their voter roles?

[14:34] » Are you aware of that ruling that came down yesterday? we got backed. Um,

[14:39] » they didn't rule on the legality of it. They ruled on a procedural error.

[14:44] » So, the lawsuit will continue, but being that meant we're 70 days out and they

[14:48] didn't say, "Hey, we're too close to the election to make this change." I'm

[14:52] curious if there is a contingency plan or if there can be

[14:56] » as directed by the state and we received this email at 9:55 a.m. this morning. So

[15:01] uh um our elections are

[15:07] referred as directed by them and it's normal because it's ongoing litigation.

[15:15] » Correct. >> So that's what we're doing today.

[15:19] Now do we have to have a meeting prior to if needed? Yeah. That won't be an

[15:25] issue following the meeting. >> Okay. As far as we know today, we won't

[15:30] need another meeting, but never know what's going to happen.

[15:34] » Correct. Because the USPS did finalize the rule that will allow them to not

[15:40] deliver the ballot. So, we're just waiting for a court decision. Do we have

[15:44] is there a law in the county that says you can't or in the state actually that

[15:48] you can't change the rules of an election within so many days? Do you

[15:52] know that? >> I don't I'm not

[15:54] » I haven't been able to find that answer. Yeah, I'm not aware of that.

[15:59] » Okay, >> that's way above us.

[16:02] » Okay. Well, thank you. >> But we're monitoring it so they keep us

[16:07] informed. So, >> well, thank you.

[16:11] » Everything's just moving. Yes. No. >> Okay.

[16:15] » Good question. Mr. Bartley, you have maybe as far as

[16:20] being a speaker. Maybe yes or no.

[16:26] Any

[16:29] other public comments?

[16:33] Seeing none, we'll close public comments.

[16:37] Destiny, do you have any questions? >> Not really.

[16:41] » Okay. >> I have to guest speakers.

[16:47] » Absolutely.

[16:54] get a copy of the release that came to you.

[17:04] That's it.

[17:08] Few announcements. The biggest one is the reminder, school starts tomorrow, so

[17:13] be careful, slow down, watch our children. Our next commissioner meeting

[17:18] is September 8th, 10th of the year. Um, Of course, the meeting

[17:26] is Thursday night at 6 PM downstairs.

[17:31] » Anything else? >> Yes. Thanks, Mark. September 7th, we're

[17:36] we're closed for Labor Day. Mark looks forward to those days off.

[17:44] Anything else?

[17:47] Saying nothing to move. Second.

[17:53] All in favor?

Jefferson County of PA Commissioners' Meeting 8-25-2026

Transcript