Lansford Borough Council members say they are entertaining an offer from Silberline Manufacturing Co. to acquire the company’s vacant facility in the borough.

Members announced at a meeting Wednesday night that they have an offer from Silberline to acquire the property at 201 W. Dock St. at no cost.

“It is totally free. That’s a word you don’t hear much,” said Councilman Bob Silver.

Last week borough council met with Silberline at the facility for a tour.

The borough is in need of a new garage for its public works department. Council members said the Silberline property is more than large enough to accommodate all of the borough’s equipment. The borough may be able to sell or lease portions to businesses interested in moving to the borough.

“We would have to have discussions with the Chamber of Commerce to possibly see if the borough keeps part of the property and to redevelop some of the rest of the property down there,” said council President Jared Soto.

Soto said council members would like to have air quality monitoring done inside the buildings before they would decide to relocate the public works department. Last year the state Department of Labor and Industry ordered the borough to relocate the department from its longtime garage on Spring Street because it was an unsafe work environment. Since then they have rented garage space in the borough.

Council voted 5-2 to move forward with negotiations, with Irma Leibensperger and Marie Ondrus voting against moving forward with negotiations with Silberline.

Marie Ondrus said she asked Silberline for research about environmental conditions on the site, which has not been provided yet.

“They were supposed to give us the results of what I asked for. These are people’s lives,” she said.

Records from the state Department of Environmental Protection show that Silberline reported that soil and groundwater on the site were impacted by volatile organic compounds and fuel oil resulting from the historical operations at the site.

DEP approved a cleanup plan for the site last December.

If the borough acquired the property, it would become tax exempt. Leibensperger said Silberline’s current tax bill is around $70,000.

The majority of that goes to Panther Valley School District. Lansford’s share of the property tax is around $30,000.

“It equates to about a mill,” Silver said.

The borough has been awarded $170,000 in grant money for a new garage. They had an engineer draw up plans for a new building, but bids came in over budget.