SLIPPERY ROCK TWP — Technical difficulties plagued a meeting of Slippery Rock Township's zoning hearing board Wednesday, where the board was set to review a special exception request for Heilman Pavement Specialties Inc. to build heavy industry in a light industrial zoning district at 490 Stoughton Road.

The board eventually decided to postpone the meeting, possibly until November, because of technical limitations that were the cause for this meeting in the first place.

A group of residents took the zoning hearing board to court in July for violating due process by only allowing public participation at the January meeting over video conference call.

Township officials attempted for a little more than 30 minutes Wednesday to broadcast the meeting via Zoom to a group of online participants, and after multiple resets only eight of about 15 registered participants were present on the call, according to the hearing board. About 25 people also attended in person.

To avoid having the same problems that arose at January's meeting, the zoning hearing board agreed after speaking privately that the special exception consideration should be postponed to allow for full participation. The legal team for Heilman Pavement Specialties concurred.

“I think we have to do it under the circumstances,” zoning hearing board solicitor Alan Shaddinger said of the postponement. “They could conceivably be parties in this matter which might appeal a decision which they didn't have an adequate opportunity to participate in,” he also said about the absent online participants.

Heilman Pavement Specialties applied to build an asphalt plant on Stoughton Road that could qualify as heavy industry, according to the township's zoning regulations.

The zoning hearing board decided at a January meeting to grant the plant a special exception to operate as heavy industry, but residents successfully sued the board claiming citizen participation, which was only allowed in an online forum, was not adequate. A judge ordered the meeting be held again to allow for in-person participation.

Shaddinger said the meeting may be rescheduled for early November. He said the board may eliminate the Zoom option to erase potential communication issues. In response, people at the meeting asked that the meeting be hosted in the evening.

Several people at the meeting also said they want to see the township improve its methods of dissemination of meeting notices.

Shaddinger said the board followed the proper legal proceedings to advertise the meeting, and will do so for future meeting notices.

“We will decide whether or not we really want to do it during the day or in the evening as requested,” Shaddinger said.

Chris Coleman, one of the appellants in the lawsuit, said the postponement was unfortunate, but a sensible decision by the board. He said during the forum that more people may attend a fully in-person meeting, so it could have a positive effect in the end.

“We were ready for today, so we're slightly disappointed that we didn't have proper communication here,” he said. “We do believe that in the future this will help us.”