Genesee Township In Running For Statewide Award Program

Genesee Township in Potter County is a finalist for a Road and Bridge Safety Improvement Award, presented annually by the State Association of Township Supervisors, PennDOT, and the Pennsylvania Highway Information Association. Statewide winners will be announced in the coming weeks. Genesee Township was nominated by the Potter County Commissioners and the regional PennDOT office.

Through innovative management, hands-on participation and forward thinking, the Genesee Township Board of Supervisors spearheaded a unique public/private partnership that resulted in the replacement of two bridges at considerable savings to taxpayers. Inspections had revealed structural deficiencies with the aging bridges on Cemetery Road and Rag Hill Road. Faced with several expensive options to restore or replace the bridges, Supervisors Butch Calcote, Bill Elliott and Dick Cornell worked out a plan to build state-approved boxed culverts to carry traffic over two stream sections. Part of the team is shown here at work on the new Cemetery Road bridge.

Genesee Township was fortunate, in that the supervisors themselves possessed the skills to perform much of the work. If the township would have been required to contract for this work, the cost to the taxpayers would have been much higher. The township conferred with a design engineer, PennDOT, the Potter County Conservation District and other agencies to assure that the construction plans would conform with all construction specifications, as well as environmental regulations.

In nominating the township for the statewide award, the Potter County Commissioners said, “Genesee Township is rural in nature and the challenges of addressing transportation and other infrastructure needs with a relatively small tax base and limited resources require the type of innovative thinking and multi-agency cooperation that these bridge projects clearly demonstrate.”