The Lower Milford Township Supervisors received a report from the public works department regarding the fall festival at the Oct. 19 meeting. The fall festival was a success with over 1,000 in attendance.

Public works also reported paperwork has been submitted for a Pennsylvania Emergency Management Agency, Federal Emergency Management Agency grant for storm damage and costs incurred from the Winter Storm Jonas April 28,

New tires on the front end loader allowed public works personnel to repair Peach Road. Other roads will also be worked on in the next weeks as weather permits. Scout Road is also scheduled to be worked on. Pond and Peach roads have been rebuilt, East Mill Hill, Landis and Orchard roads have been seal coated and base repaired and Vera Cruz Road had a small repair.

All salt is already purchased for the winter through a state contract and buyers have to take 60 percent of capacity per purchase with the ability to order up to 40 percent more, Lower Milford had to accept 60 percent on top of what was left from last year, as not much was used. Both salt sheds are now filled to capacity. Public works coordinator Drake Brintzenhoff was able to contact Pennsylvania Department of Transportation for an override at the last minute and was able to halt a portion of the order, 150 tons. In doing so, he saved the sheds from being overfilled.

In the zoning report, 10 zoning permit applications and eleven building permit applications were received; five zoning permits, seven building permits and three timber harvest permits were issued. Five certificates of occupancy were issued. One demolition permit and one driveway permit were applied for. The driveway permit was issued. No subdivision applications were processed.

There are no new subdivisions or land development plans pending before the planning commission.

Two calls were received regarding the subdivision of a single parcel into two. One call was received to subdivide a larger parcel into multiple housing units.

Planning has continued to gather information on the state of various maps and from other municipalities regarding the SW Lehigh Comprehensive Plan. Planning is also collecting and reviewing various grant possibilities with regard to trails and connectivity to neighboring communities.

In other business, the Macungie Police Department will be buying some of the police equipment and the vehicles will be placed for public bid if not sold to municipalities.

There was no audit report.

The fire department reports officials will be asking for money for a new truck at the end of the year.

Macungie Ambulance Corps reported four calls in Lower Milford Township in September and responded to a total of 299 calls in September.

Lynnette Saeger, librarian and director of Southern Lehigh Public Library, thanked the board of supervisors and township manager for continued support in amount of $23,725 this year. Saeger requested an additional 5 percent increase for next year.

Saeger said the library is evolving into a community center where people often discover the library by hiking the Upper Saucon Rail Trail. From 2015 to 2016, the library has had 65,537 visits, 91,561 items circulated out of the 69,125 items in its collection. Of its service area population of 20,969 residents, there are 10,254 cardholders. This is its 13th year at the new location, but has been established since 1963.

The summer children’s reading program “On your Mark, Get Set, Read!” a fitness based STEM curriculum reading program, had the highest ever participation with 567 children, up 58 percent from last year. Readers are rewarded with tickets for raffles and prizes at the end of the program.

The library offers year round programming for children as well; there were 445 checkouts of middle school students’ required reading and 472 checkouts of high school students’ required reading materials. The library has budgeted $15,500 for electronic resources a year and also has a collection of e-books in a consortium with other local libraries. All buy, share and collaborate what to choose and order. The cost is higher than a paper copy, but there is more use to the electronic variant and they do not wear out. Some electronic books are limited to 26 checkouts per collection at one time; others offer unlimited use.

Among the electronic offerings are the Chilton library, fitness classes, cycling classes and yoga and is among the first to offer PA Dutch language classes in the country.

The library is organizing a Zombie Fun Run 8:30 a.m. Oct. 30.

The library is working on implementing open sourced collaboration with area Lehigh Valley libraries. This will allow one collection, one set of policies and 12 to 15 libraries are interested. The collaboration will enable better sharing of resources and the cutting of operation costs.

Helping Hands is fundraising for the library and their goal this year is $35,000. They have faithfully raised an average of $32,000 yearly.

The capital improvement fund has $90,000 invested for the library and they are working closely with Upper Saucon. The land the library is on is leased from Upper Saucon. The library is also putting aside money to maintain the building, and recently surfaced and repainted the lines on their parking lot. The library also plans to take out carpet, and put in hard flooring more suitable for roughly the same expense as last year, but overall managed to cut costs significantly largely due to the closing of Lower Milford’s Police Department.

There will be a new laborer position in Lower Milford to help with projects. Chairperson Donna Wright explained an extra laborer is long overdue and having four would help, as Brintzenhoff has been jumping in to help get things done, and could be working on other township matters.

Township Manager Ellen Koplin reported the sewer fund would see no increase in funds this year. Taxes would also stay the same as the cash balance is growing largely due to the police force being cut. Environmental Protection Agency mandated stormwater projects remain a large expense, but are similar to years past.

Two requests were received by Lower Milford. Koplin reported the Community Action Committee of LV is looking for a donation of about $3,000. The non-profit organization helps nine local shelters for homeless persons and battered women. Quigley asked the board look into them more, as they were unknown to the board before their request. The second request was from Memorial Park in Coopersburg. They are asking for additional funding to upgrade parking and several other items. The park is owned by the school district; however, Living Memorial Park maintains it. The requested increase would augment funding from $4,450 to $8,000.

Koplin recommends action to keep trucks off of Clover Drive now that the bridge is repaired and determine if the road is suitable for heavy trucks. Supervisor Michael Snovitch hopes it will reduce the traffic on Limeport Pike as well, citing that up to 100 trucks a day go to Dan Schantz.

Supervisor John Quigley and Snovitch motioned the approval of the study, estimating about $2,000 is needed for the study, however no surveying is required. Supervisors approved up to $5,000 for the road engineering study for Clover Lane.

Koplin recommended that although annual road inspection is not required, it would be a good idea for the supervisors to do, as it was a requirement in years past.

The inspection would be visual; board members would drive down the roads and check on the work done as well as note any work needed.

The board will decide on a date at the next workshop in November.