Votes at a glance: White Oak council approves budgets, transfers, ordinances, grants and service payments

White Oak Borough Council took a series of formal votes at its Feb. 17 meeting. Most motions passed by voice vote. Key outcomes:

- Financial reports and check register: Council approved the treasurer’s report for January 2025 (unrestricted beginning balance $1,091,722.48; restricted balance and totals as read) and approved the monthly check register for January, which included electronic fund transfers and general fund checks in the 51021–51146 range totaling $547,138.26.

- Interfund transfers and fund totals: Council authorized January interfund transfers including Liquid Fuels → General Fund $36,293.91; Solid Waste → General Fund $76,368.65; Post‑retirement (General Fund) $2,965.52; Rainbow Volunteer Fire Company (Fire Fund) → General Fund $9,668. The recorded total transfer amount was $125,296.08.

- Vendor payments for January services: Council authorized payment to Kevin Kane for wildlife control services, $850; payment to Hideaway Kennels for animal control services, $370.

- Engineer and solicitor invoices: Council approved payment to Penn ENR Inc. for Invoice 26202 (dated Feb. 7, 2025) in the amount of $8,362.25, and approved payment to Tucker Arensberg for the solicitor’s January 2025 billing cycle totaling $6,571.50.

- Grants and condemnation/demolition: The borough reported acceptance of a $50,000 grant to pave about half of the walking trail at Heritage Hill Park; work is scheduled to begin this summer. The borough also accepted a $35,000 county grant to demolish four borough properties; the borough is proceeding with condemnation actions for those properties and scheduled condemnation/demolition hearings for March 17. Notices were sent to title owners.

- Planning and land use votes: Council approved the Daniel and Lois Deaton subdivision and consolidation plan for parcel ID 648M (as recommended by the planning commission). Council also approved the final land development plan for the Mary Mother of God parish site conditioned on satisfying engineer review and executing required agreements (covered in separate article).

- Ordinances and resolution: Council approved Ordinance 2025‑02 (establishing salaries and fees for police officers and employee job classifications/rates for calendar year 2025) and Ordinance 2025‑03 (adding Article 141 to establish a Recreation Committee for borough recreational events and use of borough facilities). Council also approved Resolution 2025‑04 to apply to the Pennsylvania Municipal Assistance Program with South Fayette/South for Sales Township (transcript wording) to update zoning ordinances and prepare a joint comprehensive plan.

- Personnel and committee items: In addition to the police personnel actions (retirement of Detective Mark Buschik and conditional hire), council heard routine departmental standing reports (police statistics, parks & recreation schedules, planning and zoning permit activity, public works man‑hours) and accepted committee reports. Several routine motions to accept reports and process payments were approved.

All motions recorded in the meeting transcript carried on voice votes with the transcript notation “All in favor? Aye. All opposed? Motion passed.” Where the transcript provided ranges, amounts or explicit invoice numbers, those figures are listed above. The transcript did not include roll‑call tallies by name for every motion; where roll calls were used the transcript records individual yea/nay votes for a small set of items.