Upper Milford Township supervisors will hold a special meeting with representatives from the Pennsylvania Department of Transportation 1:30 p.m. April 8 to air some of the complaints supervisors expressed last month about the state agency.

The meeting is open to the public, but Supervisor Robert Sentner advised residents just to come and listen; if too many people want to talk, the PennDOT representatives may leave.

Among the issues raised by supervisors at their March 19 meeting were poor snow removal work by PennDOT, failure to fix potholes on state roads and generally, poor communication between the township and the agency.

In a related matter, supervisors agreed at their April 2 meeting to purchase a traffic counting device. Township Manager Daniel DeLong said one type of device he has looked at, which costs about $4,000, measures the length of a vehicle, its speed and the time of day.

Sentner said this would give the township better information than the traffic counts provided by PennDOT, which, among other things, don't differentiate between cars and trucks. If the township owned the device, he said, it could also decide what time of day to take the traffic counts.

Supervisor Daniel Mohr asked if the results would be good enough to be accepted by PennDOT. DeLong responded, "It's not a study, per se, but its results could prompt PennDOT to do an actual study."

And Planning Coordinator Brian Miller said it would be helpful with updating the regional comprehensive plan.

"It would be a great tool for us to have," Sentner said.

In other business, supervisors agreed to allow the township fire chiefs to determine when a ban on outdoor burning is necessary, rather than imposing one automatically in April and May, as they discussed last year.

Supervisors also voted 2-1, with Sentner opposed, to include some 54 acres of land owned by Nikolas Naidu in the township's agricultural security area. About 39 acres of the land are at 6101 Chestnut St. and about 15 acres are at 6302 Kings Highway.

Although Naidu assured the board he would withdraw subdivision plans for the land which are now on the books once the Lehigh County Conservation District approves the land for preservation, Sentner appeared concerned this might not happen.

In order to qualify for preservation by the county, the land first has to be accepted into the agricultural security area.

Supervisors also:

ŸAppointed Jessi L. O'Donald as township treasurer, replacing DeLong in that capacity. O'Donald, who was hired last month on an hourly basis to work in the township office, also was given the authority to execute the township's First Niagara Financial Group account activity and Pennsylvania Local Government Trust account activity.

ŸReappointed Matt Hunter to the township planning commission and received the slate of planning commission officers from the commission. Hunter is chairman, Joyce Brown is vice chairman and Phil Hartranft is secretary. The new slate takes effect May 1.