Power to the borough

HAMBURG-At long last, when the power goes out, the borough's government and emergency services will no longer be in the dark. At the borough council's first full meeting of the new year, Councilman Mark Sena, the town's police and fire commissioner, reported that emergency generatos purchased last year will soon be installed. Hamburg has had no emergency generator for the fire department/municipal and police department buildings, and this past year, in particular, when outages occurred four times in the month of September alone, the need become more evident. Poles were hit on routes 23 and 94 during storms and other weather related reasons. Another outage was caused by animals caught in the power station at Route 94. (Jersey Central Power & Light continues to investigate the matter.) "We have been discussing the need for back-up for a while and decided to purchase the generators," said Sena. Last year, with the assistance of the town's engineering representative, Hatch, Mott, MacDonald, research was conducted, and bids were received from several companies. One generator was purchased from Foley Diesel at the cost of $15,500. The larger machine will power the municipal/fire department building. A natural gas generator for the police department, which will power radios and all equipment, was purchased at the cost of $8,415. Because of its size, the diesel generator is expected to be delivered within the next week on a flatbed truck and special equipment will be required to unload and install the machine. "We've been talking about this since I've been on the council, and last year was really when we decided we can get this done," said Sena. "Sometimes you have other issues, but this is something we needed to do and the money was available," he added. The cost had been included in a bond for capital improvements. In addition to the generators, the bond will finance road improvements and resurfacing projects. In addition, said Sena, some of the bond proceeds will be used to develop a new 22-acre parcel as "a town park, with possibly a walking path, a path to skate, and a