Published: June 11, 2008 11:19 pm      

False-alarm fee wins support

For Johnstown residents and businesses, false fire alarms soon could get costly.

City Manager Curt Davis has drafted an ordinance imposing a fee for anyone using automatic fire alarms that repeatedly summon firefighters for no reason.

“With the cost of gas and oil the way it is, we don’t want to be going out to false alarms,” Davis said.

The statute, given preliminary approval by City Council on Wednesday, includes a$50 charge for each residential false alarm. Commercial establishments will have to pay $150.

No fee will be imposed for the first three false alarms in a calendar year.

Also, Davis will reserve the right to waive the charge in some cases where a false alarm is “not reasonably attributable to the alarm-service subscriber or building owner or his or her equipment.”

And those with a newly installed alarm will get a two-week grace period to work out the bugs in their system.

In other business Wednesday, council asked for more information on a proposal to place a new minor-league baseball team in Johnstown.

Larry Faulkner, a representative of Old Time Baseball LLC, said he would like to know by the end of August whether city officials are interested in participating in the startup league.

The independent, professional mid-Atlantic league could start play next year with four teams.