The Sept. 8 Emmaus Borough Council meeting began with a personal appeal by a township resident who resides along Fourth Street in Emmaus. The appeal is to convert two vehicle spots in front of 18 and 24 Fourth St. into non-limited parking spaces. Currently, the street parking spots are limited to two hours, which proposes a problem as there are no private parking spots for 18 Fourth St. This proposal will be sent to the safety commission to make a decision on whether converting the street parking is logical or if acquiring a private parking spot elsewhere may be more advantageous.

A compromise suggested by council was nightly and weekend unlimited parking spots. However, the owner said they need the spots as the tenants are currently working from home due to the pandemic. A decision will be made Sept. 14 at the safety meeting.

Borough Manager Shane Pepe announced the Emmaus Summer Concert Series wrapped up the first September weekend. It was noted the series was well attended and there were no issues with the COVID-19 restrictions.

At the end of his announcement, Council President Brent Labenberg commented this meeting also marked another special occasion - Pepe’s 40th birthday. Council and everyone through Zoom sang Happy Birthday.

Next on the agenda, Carolyn Davidson submitted an application to be a board of health volunteer. Davidson brings over 30 years of medical experience and council was satisfied with her interview. After a short deliberation, she was approved.

Following, it was announced Alan Sylvester requested to be appointed to the recreation and entertainment committee. Sylvester owns a media company and has recently volunteered his time to help livestream community events, which includes the summer concert series. Pepe remarked Sylvester was a committed volunteer and said he was impressed with the job he did. Councilwoman Shana Baumgartner said he brought up several good ideas in his interview and was eager to bring his ideas to the fold.

The issue of motives was raised about this position, specifically in regard to Sylvester’s media company. However, Sylvester’s reputation superseded any supposed situation. All members voted to appoint him.

In other business, Ordinance No. 1204 was on the agenda to be approved. The ordinance will amend Chapter 15, Section 602 of the Borough of Emmaus Code of Consolidated Ordinances. It regulates the issuance of disabled parking spaces and signs for persons with a disability or severely disabled veterans, providing for application review and procedures for issuance of disabled parking spaces and signs, renewal of disabled parking spaces and signs and removal of unneeded disabled parking spaces and signs.

The parks and recreations committee had several items on its agenda. The first item for action was a Home run for Trees for Local Governments Grant Application. They would like to apply for grant money to plant approximately 100 trees in specified locations in the borough. This grant will award $1,000 if received with no cost to the borough. Junior Councilman Jonah Hausman will apply for this grant with assistance from Baumgartner. This item was approved.

The Halloween Parade is canceled. Pepe said the parade usually sees around 10,000 to 15,000 attendees. He said with Gov. Tom Wolf’s 250-person mandate, this simply cannot happen.

Ashley Lorah presented an idea for an Emmaus Main Street Partners reverse parade, although the borough will call this an event, rather than a parade.

As an option to replace the Emmaus Halloween parade, businesses and organizations can come and dress a static float, while attendees drive their cars to look at all the different booths and areas. There would be a 250-person capacity at a time. Everyone can stay in their designated areas and vehicles. This would look similar to Lights in the Parkway. However, this would be held at Emmaus Community Park.

Council said the parade usually takes place on the third Saturday in October, so it would fall on Oct. 17, but, the weekend of Oct. 31 was also presented as an option. Whether or not trick or treat will occur is still up in the air and needs to be discussed at the next council meeting. They said Oct. 31 may be a better date to give more time for planning. However, Labenberg announced an idea might be presented where Oct. 31 could be used for a Halloween car show.

A motion was put forward by Baumgartner to approve the Emmaus Main Street Program Reverse Parade. Pepe wanted further discussion. He wanted to make sure this was a co-sponsored event by the borough with donations going to next year’s 100th anniversary Halloween parade. The motion was then accepted.

The Halloween 5K race is on. Wesley Barrett is considering having the race over a 4-hour time frame to give more time, so people can space their start times. There is no plan to close any streets, but there will be portable toilets and satisfactory sanitary wipes. Barrett is a community member who’s been hosting and running races for a long time. The council members have faith in Barrett’s ability to host this race with the appropriate guidelines. The race is scheduled for Oct. 17. Contingent upon reviewing his final plan, the board approved his proposal.

A request for proposals for architectural services for municipal buildings was announced - specifically, for the police station and borough building. The borough sold property and this money will be used for maintenance of the current buildings.

The budget and finance committee items were then presented by Councilman Chris DeFrain. The first item was to authorize the bill list 2020-29, which was for the payment of $372,633. The next item was a FEME Preparedness Grant to assist the Emmaus Fire Department. Pepe said the borough put $36,000 into the budget for a radio grant for the fire department. They received the grant, but the grant came in at $48,000 with a 10 percent match. The money will be used to update the radios for the station.

Defrain then announced the finance and budget committee is looking to outsource the ambulance billing by the end of March 2021. Council approved to outsource the ambulance billing function.

Next, was the elimination of the ambulance subscription program. This is costing the borough $60,000 and the management of this program is difficult without an EMS chief. This program isn’t being taken advantage of and all council members approved the elimination of this program.

In the junior council member report, Hausman announced virtual lessons at Emmaus High School are in full swing. The junior councilman said online block scheduling has been difficult because the students are moving to a new online program. The program is called Schoology. This is different from the Google Classroom they were accustomed to.

During the second round of personal appeals, borough resident Naomi Winch appeared through the virtual Zoom meeting. She stated that over the weekend, while she and her family were watching a movie in their backyard, someone threw a mortar into the yard. She believes it is a neighbor who has been supposedly harassing them.

This is not the first incident with problems for her and her family. Winch said her husband had a neighbor throw a small firework at him. The attacker fled and the police were called, but no one was apprehended. Winch was upset nothing was being done, as she feels her family was being harassed over their conservative political views. It was then mentioned by council that the house pointed out by her husband was investigated by the arriving officer and it turned out to be a sleeping family.

Winch said not enough was being done. It was said the policeman who arrived did not want to knock on too many neighbor’s doors. Winch was very frustrated as council kept stating this was a police matter.

Following this appeal, Pepe made a statement in his manager’s report about a bill in the state legislature currently about township agendas. If approved, meeting agendas will need to be posted online 24-48 hours before the meeting. But, if something is missed in the agenda, nothing can be discussed without having a vote at the beginning of the meeting. If it is not on the agenda, it cannot be discussed if it is not voted on at the beginning that it should be included in the agenda.

The next Emmaus Council meeting will take place 7 p.m. Sept. 21. A Zoom link will be made available on the Emmaus Borough website.