Mars Borough Council has been meeting at the building at 301 Arch St., but changes to the structure — to make it as accessible as possible — are still under consideration.

MARS — Accessibility was on the minds of borough council members as they discussed plans for use of the Education Building at 301 Arch St. at an agenda meeting Monday night.

Council President Mike Fleming emphasized that the discussion early in the planning stage was to “air out ideas” on possibilities for the layout of the building, formerly owned by Dutilh United Methodist Church. Cost and security were also priorities.

One prospective design included space for a police department office in a downstairs basement area, and involved placing a transom window and foyer in the entryway. Another option would cost less, but would not include the interior window and additional foyer.

Fleming said that adding a window and foyer would improve security as well as make the space more accessible to visiting residents.

“The bottom line is this building is to serve the residents first and foremost — they own it,” Fleming said. “It should be as user friendly (as possible) for any resident to come in here, see a person, conduct their business and leave. The secretaries across the hall and out of sight — it doesn't make any sense to me.”

Access also concerned council member Brad Price.

“We have an older population in Mars, and it should be as simple as possible, where they can walk in — like how you walk into the Breakneck Creek Sewage Authority or any of the other facilities around here, there's a reception counter right there,” Price said. “To me, the best alternative is that if someone walks into the building, there's someone there to greet them and welcome them.”

Council member Julie Schultheis pushed back on the idea that the window was mandatory.

“For every place where you walk in and there's a window, there's probably five places where there is no window, and instead, there's a sign hanging on a wall,” Schultheis said. “I don't agree that it's not user friendly — I think it's very easy to walk through that door into this office.”

Schultheis pointed out that the installation of a window would probably require a structural engineer's perspective.

“We were moving toward a most cost-effective way to get us in,” she said. “This is a lot more costly than what we are doing now. The second proposal made the least changes to the building.”

The borough council previously purchased the building at 301 Arch St., and has been holding its regular and agenda meetings on the first floor since earlier this month. Previously, agenda meetings were held at 598 Spring Ave., with some remote access due to the COVID-19 pandemic. Virtual meetings are no longer being held due to the ability for social distancing at the new meeting location, according to the Mars borough website.

In his regular report, Mayor Gregg Hartung announced preliminary discussions with the Aldrin Family Foundation about procuring large maps of the moon and Mars for educational purposes for the Mars New Year festival later this year.The vinyl floor maps show Mars and moon topography and regions as well as landing sites of missions, and feature comparative data about Mars, the moon and Earth, according to the Aldrin Family Foundation website.“We're working on a memo of understanding, and hopefully by Aug. 27, when we have our event, we'll have that memorandum worked out between the school districts, ourselves, Carnegie Mellon University and the Aldrin Family Foundation,” Hartung said. “We've been having a series of weekly zoom meetings with the Aldrin Foundation to work it all out.”<b> The above article, published the morning of June 23, incorrectly identified borough councilman Brad Price as Brand Price. The correction was made at 12:30 p.m. June 23. </b>