Union Bridge News-Briefs

(10/25) Resolutions To Town Charter Approved

Recently, the Town Council discussed implementing two resolutions to the Town’s Charter concerning the upcoming elections. The first will require mayor and commissioner candidates to be residents of Union Bridge for a minimum of two years immediately preceding an upcoming election. Mayor Perry Jones explained the reason why they wanted to update the residency requirements was to catch up with the way other municipalities are doing their elections. "We feel that people move into Town for one year and they don’t really know what is going on," he said. "If we require them to be residents for at least two years before they try to run for office, maybe they will come to Council meetings and get involved first."

The second resolution concerns uncontested elections. When the number of qualified candidates is equal or less than the number of positions open, an election will not be required. "This saves us a lot of money because we won't need to have our election people [at the polls] all day and no one show up," said Jones.

At September’s meeting, a public hearing was held to see what the Town’s residents thought of the changes. As no one was present to voice opinions, the Council passed both resolutions with unanimous decisions. The public will have 40 days to file a referendum if they so wish. A referendum is a special election where voters will be asked to answer specifically "yes" or "no" to a question, in this case whether they approve of the resolutions or not. If no one files one, after 50 days both resolutions will be officially adopted into the Town’s Charter.

Quaker Hill Road Water Line Project Accepts Bids

The Quaker Hill Road water service line project accepted an official bid for work to begin at September's meeting. The project consists of the installation of lead-free copper water service lines for two residential units on Quaker Hill Road. According to Councilmember Bret Grossnickle, the project is being done to "clean up an old mess," however he did not give further detail as to the reason why.

Two companies placed bids to do the work: Stambaugh’s Inc, a local construction company based out of Union Bridge, and Mid Atlantic Utilities LLC from the Ellicott City area. Stambaugh’s bid of $24,339 was considerably lower than Mid Atlantic's at $61,290.

Grossnickle promoted Stambaugh’s saying their work on a previous project in Town was excellent and recommended the company. Council members agreed and the project was awarded to the local business.