Solicitor: county redevelopment authority seeks new cooperation agreements to clear up RACP reimbursements

Mister Ripley, the borough solicitor, told council he had been contacted by the county redevelopment authority about unresolved accounting tied to past Redevelopment Assistance Capital Program (RACP) grants and asked the borough to adopt updated cooperation agreements to clarify which parties are responsible for remaining reimbursements.

"What they're simply asking is to sort of clean this up, is for us to, adopt, new cooperation agreements that clarify that r 2 k is responsible for this amount and the Clifton Heights is responsible for another amount," Ripley said. He said the remaining question stems from past RACP awards that were used for multiple local projects and that the borough had previously been the cooperative partner for grants that later funded work now associated with the R2K project site, near where Bernie's Pretzels is located.

Ripley described the RACP program as reimbursement-based and said the borough and redevelopment authority are at the tail end of that process. He said he received about eight documents from the redevelopment authority late the previous day and that he had not completed his review. He indicated he planned to place the cooperation agreements on a July council agenda, pending any issues in his review.

Council members were given this report as an update; no formal vote or agreement adoption was recorded in the transcript. Ripley characterized the matter as a cleanup of long-running project paperwork rather than a new financial commitment to be finalized at the meeting.