Noyes and East Keating Township residents come together to discuss possible merger

By Christopher Miller

“The meaning for this meeting is that East Keating is wanting to merge into Noyes Township, these two guys (George and Craig Stimpson) are the only two working in the township, and there are seven residents,” township secretary/treasurer Tracy Shady explained.

“With George ready to retire and Craig working a lot, they just don’t have the time to take care of the township, so as friendly neighbors Noyes decided to take over and merge them with us.”

Terri Cunkle of DCED was present to explain the merger, having been involved with several mergers over the past few years.

“The state of Pennsylvania has 2,560 municipalities and lately more and more people have been talking about mergers, I’ve had five mergers go on the ballot in the last two years and typically it is not about money, it’s about people,” Terri explained. “It’s about you don’t have the people running for office anymore and you don’t have the capacity to make it work and that’s what happened with East Keating.”

“Both townships drafted an ordinance explaining what the merger would look like, then they put it on the ballot,” she explained. “The majority has to vote and be favorable in each municipality and if one municipality votes it down, the question of a merger cannot go back on the ballot for five years.”

Solicitor Rocco Rosamilia was present to provide answers to questions and review some of the legal aspects of the merger.

“From East Keating’s standpoint, they are getting manpower, from Noyes Township, you’re getting liquid fuel money, road maintenance, and capital funds, taxes for East Keating won’t be going down and taxes for Noyes aren’t going to go up, and most things will stay the same,” Rocco explained.

One of the minor things that will change is the property transfer tax.

“If you’re buying or selling land in East Keating, your transfer tax is $0, but after the merger you will be paying a transfer tax,” Rocco said. “This meeting is full disclosure, we are not trying to pull the wool over your eyes.”

The question on the ballot in November will read along these lines: should East Keating merge into Noyes Township?

“The idea behind this is helping your neighbor,” Rocco said. “You will have seven new voters in Noyes Township, and Noyes will have 51 square miles of new land.”

The other item that will be new for those living in East Keating are some different ordinances, such as an acceptable height for lawns, and some other ordinances. “The ordinances of Noyes Township would be adopted in East Keating,” Rocco said.

On the question of road maintenance and equipment coming from East Keating Township, Jim Tarantella explained

“Between 7.4 and 7.5 miles of road will be added for maintenance, and cleaning of drains will be added for Noyes Township maintenance crews in East Keating if the merger goes through,” Tarantella explained. “We looked at their equipment and saw that some things are worn out, and some are really good that we could take and use.”

On the question of finances for East Keating Township, Tracy Shady and Terri Cunkle explained.

“Liquid fuels for East Keating Township amount to $26,405 and all together it is 7.22 miles of road,” Shady said. “East Keating is also coming in with a $200,000 surplus and as for expenses, we would be saving my salary of about $33,000.”

Noyes resident Chris Graw asked the question of how many camps are in the area of East Keating.

“About 200 camps,” East Keating resident Marguerite “Peg” Miller responded.

“I can tell you your total assessed value in East Keating is $7,350,000 on all the properties, so with your seven residents you have a lot of camps,” Cunkle replied.

“That’s why they’re angry, because they don’t see that they get to vote on anything, the ones that know about it, and most don’t even know we are trying to merge,” Miller stated.

“Well they can’t vote because they aren’t registered to vote in this county,” Cunkle replied.

On the topic of taxes, Cunkle asked the residents to not blame raising taxes in a few years on the merger if it goes through, as everything has gone up in price 20-30%.

“You know as well as I that everything has gone up in price,” she said. “Fuel, groceries, utilities, it’s all 20-30% now than before.”

Noyes Township Supervisor Jim Tarantella offered his support in favor of the merger.

“I went and looked at everything East Keating has, we met with George and his son, and George took us around on the roads that they maintain and I could see things that need to be done, but once they are done I don’t think we will have to do them again on a regular basis,” he explained. “Once we take East Keating, we can apply for grants for projects, and there’s lots of money out there for dirt roads, so we would be eligible to apply for grants…I think it is more work, but everybody in the end will be more happy.”

Terri Cunkle closed by saying that there will be some expenses to be paid out for the process of the merger.

“There will be professional fees, like with the solicitor, and the state will give a grant for that with a 10% match, so to alleviate those costs, and then needing to codify the ordinances, and there is another grant for that,” she explained.

The village of Keating will still exist, but East Keating Township will no longer exist.

“How about maps,” Christopher Miller asked, “how soon will they reflect the change?”

“A lot of the map depends on your county GIS, they will change all the tax parcel IDs, PennDOT will change their maps pretty immediately which are important for roadways and liquid fuel money,” Cunkle replied.

Both incorporated in 1875, East Keating Township will be only three weeks shy of its 150th birthday if the merger takes place on January 1, 2025.

About 20 people from Noyes and East Keating Townships were in attendance Tuesday evening.