Chief sees increase in crime
WAYNESBURG – Waynesburg Borough police saw a 32 percent increase last year in the number of “nontraffic” incidents, which include assaults, thefts, burglaries and other crimes, Waynesburg Police Chief Rob Toth reported Monday.
Toth presented borough council with a summary of police activity for 2015, a year the police department saw the total number of incidents it responded to increase from 870 to 951.
The number of nontraffic offenses jumped from 219 in 2014 to 289 last year, Toth said.
“It is what it is. I can’t explain it,” he said.
“It’s a scary trend, and our guys are out there dealing with it.”
Some of the increase, Toth said later, obviously is tied to drugs and alcohol.
The number of juvenile incidents also increased dramatically – from 12 in 2014 to 28 last year – a 130 percent jump, Toth said. The last time the borough saw a number for juvenile incidents that high was in 2010, he said.
Toth also noted the number of traffic offenses handled by the force, including for driving under the influence of alcohol, up 13 percent, from 511 to 577.
The number of traffic accidents, however, declined from 122 to 110.
And while the boom in the natural gas industry has recently subsided, the borough continued to see a large number of “construction notifications” issued for wide or overweight loads passing through the borough, Toth said.
The number of notifications increased from 597 in 2014 to 652 last year.
In other business, council adopted tax abatement ordinances. The ordinances are the same as those adopted by council five years ago.
Tax abatement offers property tax breaks to those who build or improve businesses and homes in the borough.
The ordinances provide a five-year property tax abatement for business construction and improvements and a three-year abatement for home construction and improvements. One of the ordinances also offers a five-year extension on the abatement for businesses that meet certain criteria.
Borough manager Mike Simms reported he and several members of council met recently with the Franklin Township Sewer Authority to begin discussions about possibly combining the Waynesburg and Franklin sewage systems.
The borough is required by the state Department of Environmental Protection to develop a plan to address sewage overflows at the borough’s sewage treatment plant.
As part of the plan, the borough is considering three alternatives for the borough’s treatment plant.
They include rehabilitating the existing plant, replacing it with a new plant or abandoning the plant and having borough sewage treated by the Franklin plant.
Under the last option, the borough would have to pay to upgrade the Franklin Township plant to handle additional capacity.
In addition to work involving the treatment plant, the borough’s project will include separating the sanitary sewer and storm sewer and reducing the amount of groundwater infiltration entering the system through faulty sewer lines.