If Sunbury doesn’t toot its own horn, who will?

Mayor Jesse Woodring recently acknowledged that the city suffers from an image problem. Part of the problem, he said, is the city doesn’t market itself.

“We have special things here, and sometimes, we don’t even know we have these things,” he said.

Drawing parallels to large corporations that have their own public relations departments, Woodring said the city is considering spending $2,430 to hire a PR consultant to research how it can play up its positives — to residents in and outside the city limits.

The mayor said he has money set aside in his budget to cover the expense.

Betsy Robertson, former director of public relations at Susquehanna University, is being considered for the position.

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After finding out it wouldn’t be feasible to rent out space in the renovated Second Street School to businesses, Northumberland borough officials are looking into opening the building up to nearby universities.

Members of the borough’s community development committee are calling around to regional colleges — including Pennsylvania College of Technology and Lackawanna County Community College — to see if they’d be interested in using the building to hold classes.

Moving borough offices into the former school still is a strong possibility as well, underlining in Mayor Gretchen Brosius’ mind the importance of figuring out exactly what the borough wants to do with the building.

“I have had people ask (about making donations), and I tell them, ‘Well, it could be this, or this, or this,’ and that’s not going to encourage them,” she said. “It’s high time we come up with a plan and have Borough Council vote on it, and that leaves us open for a capital campaign.”

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The Sunbury Police Department building is one of two city-owned properties without flood insurance.

The City Council recently became aware of the oversight and is researching how much it would cost to insure the properties, the other being an empty building on Chestnut Street the city uses for storage.

Police Chief Steve Mazzeo brought up the high cost of the computer equipment at the department — $100,000 or more — and advised the council to, at the very least, insure those materials.