The Nov. 2 Emmaus Borough Council meeting began with a personal appeal from Ashley Lorah who shared the plan for attendance at Emmaus’ Old Fashioned Christmas tree lighting. The tree lighting event will take place Dec. 5 at Triangle Park in downtown Emmaus. South Fourth Street from Jubilee Street to Chestnut Street will be closed, meaning the bridge won’t be accessible during the three-hour event.

The plans include a live in-person tree lighting, but with far fewer vendors. Only nonprofit vendors and sponsors of the event will be permitted. Per state guidelines a maximum of 500 attendees will be permitted. This includes vendors, staff, etc. There will be no pictures with Santa; however, he will be there to say hi to the children, but with a microphone.

Plans are to rope off the event from the beginning to monitor the number of people arriving. If attendance is more than expected, people will have to wait to get in or may not get in at all. The planning team is going to make the ceremony virtually available for the public.

Lorah said they are planning to have reindeer at the event this year.

Following Lorah’s appeal, the minutes of Oct. 19 were approved.

In communications, Linda Destan has resigned from the shade tree commission.

In the mayor’s report, Mayor Lee Ann Gilbert reported the month of November is No Shave November, which will be supported by the Emmaus Police. Gilbert also recognized an Emmaus K-9 police unit for their incredible job this past month in apprehending fleeing suspects after a car crash.

Councilman Chad Balliet announced a resolution to approve the plan revision for a sewer module at Parkside at North Street. This was approved by the council. Additionally, another motion was passed to change the process of reviewing engineer/legal development fees. It was decided council will review the bills before the commission approves any of these types of fees.

“This is to put an extra set of eyes on the bills … people better trained to look at these types of things,” Borough Manager Shane Pepe said

This gives the health, sanitation and codes commission an opportunity for oversight on big scale decisions.

Pepe said the borough doesn’t want to be spending legal fees on things that could be looked at beforehand.

Budget and Finance Chair Chris DeFrain announced the payment of bills for the last half of October. The total amounted to $503,627.38.

There were two additional items in budget and finance for audio and video upgrades to borough hall and the police building. The motion was approved to pay $26,256.05 for these upgrades. This was an expense budgeted from the Coronavirus Aid, Relief and Economic Security Act due to the COVID-19 pandemic.

A second motion was passed to approve audio/visual upgrades for the council chambers. They will be using the company ESG Systems. This will include video capabilities throughout the municipal building. The cost for these upgrades amounts to $42,942.

Junior Council Member Jonas Hausmann announced the East Penn School District has converted to a hybrid virtual schedule based on the students’ last names.

Hausmann said there have been two confirmed cases of COVID-19. Those students have quarantined and all precautions were taken to ensure proper sanitization. However, Hausmann noted the school is not taking temperatures of every student as they come in. They are only taking temperatures for students taking part in extracurriculars after school.

The next Emmaus Borough Council meeting will be held 7 p.m. Nov. 16. All council meetings are available through Zoom on the Emmaus borough website.