Over a dozen residents appeared en masse at the Oct. 28 Alburtis Borough Council meeting to voice their support for the proposed ordinance prohibiting the usage of buckets, pails or tubs for mailbox installation.

“I’m here to urge council to pass the proposed ordinance regarding the receptacles holding U.S. Postal Service Regulation mailboxes,” resident Carol Bauder said. Bauder has previously circulated petitions regarding the bucket anchors.

“Alburtis council members, if you truly want to serve the residents of Alburtis and have a true spirit for a better community, you will adamantly pass this ordinance tonight,” Bauder said.

Borough solicitor David Knerr presented a draft of the ordinance, dubbed Ordinance No. 532, before council. The central tenet of the draft is the prohibition of the usage of buckets, pails or tubs for post installation. Residents are given explicit guidelines regarding the dimensions and location of mailboxes affixed to either a post or a mounting pole in accordance with USPS standards. Members reviewed the ordinance line-by-line, noting items of contention and places for revision.

An exception was made in the preliminary draft document concerning the use of flowerpots in lieu of buckets, provided they are composed of ceramic, heavy gauge vinyl, pressure treated wood or fir and are well-maintained. The pots may not exceed 18 inches in diameter or 16 inches in height.

Council member Kathleen Raines expressed her concerns.

“There’s a lot of flowerpots that are much bigger than what these measurements are,” Raines said. “These people [on Franklin Street] have nice flowerpots with nice flowers in them wind up having to remove all that because they’re bigger than what this ordinance size is.”

A portion of the flowerpot containers along Franklin Street, though well-maintained, measure between 20 and 22 inches in diameter. Ordinance No. 532 would set a maximum acceptable diameter of 18 inches and a maximum height of 16 inches for container installations.

Councilman David Lehr defended the current dimensions citing, “I came up with 18 inches wide, 16 inches high for a lot of reasons, one of which is if you start moving away from those dimensions, you start taking up more area on the sidewalk.”

Lehr also conceded, “I was the first to acknowledge when I wrote the draft, the numbers are open for contention, no matter what you place [regulation dimensions] at, somebody’s going to say, ‘Well now you’ve allowed 22 inches, mine’s 23 inches, why can’t I have 23 inches?”

The ordinance was ultimately tabled due to a number of revisions.

Borough council is expected to hold a formal vote at the next meeting Nov. 11. The borough will also hold a conditional use hearing regarding the land lease agreement with Verizon Wireless.