Lehigh County Commissioners announced Lehigh County will lease a portion of St. John’s United Church of Christ, in Coopersburg, for the purpose of establishing a senior center at its Dec. 18, 2019 meeting. The new center will occupy 1,300 square feet in the back part of the church and will include a kitchen.

The lease will include 50 parking spaces and access to public bathrooms.

In other business, commissioners approved appointments of Kathryn E. McAuley and Lucas Gordils-Molina to the Aging and Adult Services Advisory Council. Also appointed to the council were John Teufel, Sarina Vas and Grace Chehound Vengelo.

Heidi K. Baer was appointed to the Lehigh County Housing Authority Board and Robert Wegner was appointed to the Children and Youth Services Advisory Board.

The reorganization meeting to elect officers for the new board of commissioners is set for 7:30 p.m. Jan. 6. At this meeting, the now mostly Democrat board will choose officers for 2020.

While the president of the board will likely be a Democrat, a well-informed source said, “We will return to an old tradition and elect a Republican as the vice president of the board of commissioners.”

The 2020 slate of officers who will be sworn in are Geoff Brace, Amy Zanelli, Dan Hartzell, Dave Harrington, Zakiya Smalls, Bob Elbich, Marc Grammes, Nathan Brown and Dr. Percy Dougherty who will start his seventh term as a commissioner.