By ERIC SLAGLE Daily News Staff Writer
 eslagle@dailynewsemail.com
  With the municipality’s police chief retiring, a Forward Township supervisor will take over administrative duties for the department until a new chief is appointed.
  Police Chief Tom Staley is retiring Aug. 14 with 39 years of service. Staley, who supervisors said notified the township of his plans to retire two months ago, is only the third person to ever serve as chief of the department.
  Township supervisors announced during a regular meeting Thursday that they have no immediate plans to hire a replacement for the chief, who was not in attendance.
  Rather, they said supervisor Dave Magiske will take over as administrative head of the department, possibly until the new calendar year.
  “We need to examine all of our options,” Magiske said.
  While there is no word on what those options are, Magiske did not rule out that someone from within the department eventually could be moved into the position. He said he’s met with officers to discuss

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the direction of the department and said, “We’re very fortunate that most of our people have been around for a while.” The department has five full-time and three part-time officers.
  Magiske said several have 10 or more years of experience.
  Board of supervisors Chairman Tom DeRosa said the board would hold off appointing a new chief until the first of the year, but Magiske said later that date is only tentative.
  In other business, supervisors voted to table action on bids by two contractors to do paving work on several area roads.
  Low-bidder Russell Standard Corp. at $144,320 and competitive bidder TDF Services at $157,632 both presented cost estimates for a proposed 64,000-square-foot paving project that were too high for supervisors’ liking, who were looking to spend approximately $120,000 on the project.
  Supervisors decided they would scale back the scope of the job to reduce costs and put the project out for bid again.
  The paving was to include work on Kelly Hollow, Guffey, William Penn, Rostosky Ridge and Manown roads and Malerie Lane. No determination was made at the meeting as to how the project would be revised.