Page 5 - Ken Decker News Today : Breaking News, Live Updates & Top Stories | Vimarsana

bkibler@altoonamirror.com City Council on Monday gave permission for staff to investigate how best to amend the zoning ordinance to regulate drug and alcohol “recovery houses.” The discussion was in response to a recent inquiry from a party who hopes to buy a property in order to establish such a facility. Recovery houses are “safe, healthy, family-like, substance-free living environments that support individuals in recovery from addiction … centered on peer support and a connection to services that promote long-term recovery,” according to the Substance and Mental Health Services A...

bkibler@altoonamirror.com City Council on Monday introduced a pair of ordinances intended to make it easier for the Department of Codes & Inspections to deal with blight. One ordinance makes code condemnations applicable to properties, rather than their owners, so they remain in effect when properties are sold; while the other ordinance creates categories for vacant property registrations, so the city can better dedicate the right kind of resources to them, depending on the severity of the problems they cause, according to codes Director Rebecca Brown. The ordinance that ties code condemnatio...

bkibler@altoonamirror.com City Council on Monday approved two contracts for a total of $165,000 to demolish 13 blighted structures, using city discretionary funds to eliminate a chronic backlog of derelict buildings. The money — $103,000 of it from reserves — will supplement the city’s regular demolition program, funded by federal Community Development Block Grants, that has never been able to keep up with the pace of new blight. The ongoing CDBG program funds a two-person in-house crew that will take down five more derelict homes between now and June at a cost of $70,000, so that a tot...

bkibler@altoonamirror.com At a City Council meeting Monday, the president of the city firefighters’ union questioned the city’s decision not to apply for Coronavirus Aid, Relief, and Economic Security (CARES) Act money from Blair County — given that Logan Township applied for the funding and received $622,000. The city didn’t apply because it’s getting reimbursed for its direct COVID-19 expenses from the Pennsylvania Emergency Management Agency and because it wished to defer to AMED and the Central Blair Recreation and Park Commission, which have been damaged financially more than t...

bkibler@altoonamirror.com City Councilwoman Christie Jordan has been charged with theft for allegedly taking keys without permission from a house she co-owns with her ex-husband — a house in which she doesn’t live — and keeping the keys for several hours. Jordan, 43, allegedly went into the city house through an unlocked back door on the morning of Dec. 27 and took the keys to a car owned solely by her ex-husband from a table, according to Altoona police. The daughter of her ex-husband called and texted Jordan for the next several hours, because the car was needed for transportation to ...