St. Ann’s Cub Scout Pack 80 attended the Emmaus Borough Council meeting Nov. 18 to ask the council members a variety of questions.

The boys, who were doing this for their “Building a Better World Adventure” award, asked a plethora of questions, some of which have come up in discussions between council and the public before.

When asked what the biggest issue going on in the borough currently was, President Brent Labenberg told the Cub Scouts it was budget season and council had to make some tough decisions.

“We always have to try to make whatever revenue comes in from taxes equal what we spend,” Labenberg said. “And right now we’re having trouble doing that because there’s more things that we need to spend money on than we have money, so we have to make some decisions.”

One boy mentioned the upcoming Wawa, which has been a hot issue with residents for over a year now. The Cub Scout asked how “we can get the new Emmaus Wawa to be community oriented?”

Councilman Chris DeFrain answered this question, and noted Wawa as a company has “a pretty good reputation and is community oriented already.” DeFrain talked about how the Wawa developers worked with the borough to address any public safety concerns that arose. “I don’t think they’ve said no to anything that we’ve asked them to do,” DeFrain said.

DeFrain gave the example of how the borough wanted sidewalks to be implemented in the vicinity of Wawa and how the developers agreed to put them in.

Questions regarding refuse and recycling were brought up, such as the basic refuse procedure the borough follows and what the boys themselves could do to help with pollution around town.

Labenberg mentioned how the community gets together for Earth Day once a year and chooses targeted areas in the borough to clean up. He said once a year is not enough, and “if everybody just pitched in and picked up what they saw, it would be less of an issue.”

Council praised one of the boys when he said he and his friends pick up trash at the playground they often go to.

The topic of whether or not council had control over the shops in Emmaus, such as “helping the owner make decisions,” was asked as well.

Borough Manager Shane Pepe said council has no control over any individual’s business, but they do everything they can to help them, such as helping with issues that arise on the property itself. Pepe brought up a grant the borough received a few years back that helped the borough partner with roughly 15 businesses to update and restore the façade of their buildings.

It was also noted by Borough Solicitor Jeffrey Dimmich the borough has a zoning ordinance that tells business owners where they can and can’t put their business.

One Cub Scout questioned the fate of the borough’s community parks, and whether any more were in talks of being built.

Pepe explained the borough had recently received a couple of grants to study all of the borough’s parks and recreational offerings. The study will help council make decisions for the future of the parks such as what needs to be fixed and the possibility of adding new parks all together. In addition, the studies will be taking a look at the community swimming pool and walking trails.

Pepe said they will be sending out letters and phone calls to borough residents inviting them to be part of the process.

The final question asked was “Does the borough of Emmaus own Emmaus?”

“We don’t, the people of the community own Emmaus,” Pepe said. He explained their job as the government is to work on behalf of the people who reside in Emmaus and to provide them services.

In other business, council unanimously passed Resolution 2019-38, which is the planning module for the sewer system for the Towns at South Mountain. The original delay was the water pressure, but has since been resolved from flow testing.

Ordinance 1194 passed its final reading, which will add a residential handicapped parking sign on 542 Broad St.