North Catasauqua Borough Council held its first regular meeting of the month Dec. 7.

Council approved three resolutions requested by Annette Englert, treasurer, concerning budgets and tax rates in 2021. The borough tax rate was increased to 13.7 mills, the preliminary 2021 general fund budget was approved at $1.88 million and the 2021 sewer fund budget was approved at $740,000. All three resolutions were approved unanimously.

After the votes, Councilman John Yanek said he would have liked to vote against a tax increase but realized it was unavoidable, given the borough’s current situation. Board President Peter Paone and Councilman Joseph T. Keglovits echoed those sentiments.

Paone explained some unexpected and unavoidable costs in 2020 led to money being taken out of the borough’s special projects fund just to cover bills for the year. The coming tax increase, he said, has been done to cover expected similar costs in 2021.

Representatives of J.P. Mascaro & Sons once again appeared before borough council to explain a significant increase in their contract prices for solid waste and recycling removal. During the Nov. 16 meeting, J.P. Mascaro & Sons representatives delivered their company’s bid for the new waste removal contract, with the explanation the price increase was due to changes in the recycling market. It was the only bid the borough received.

At that time, borough council members decided to postpone the vote on the contract until they could be given further details on the significant price hike.

J.P. Mascaro & Sons representatives reported Dec. 7 the company has had difficulty with staffing, as well as other issues related to COVID-19, which has also led to the increased cost.

After hearing this, borough council voted unanimously to refuse J.P. Mascaro’s bid and, then, to advertise the borough would be putting the waste removal contract out for bid again in the hopes of attracting bids from other companies.

Borough Engineer Dave Kutzor informed council he has received a $352,000 contract for the Main Street trailhead access road project. Paone said the project cost, although still higher than the estimated grant funding amount, is more in line with the borough’s expectations than proposals for the project have been.

At a previous meeting, council opened a number of bids for the stormwater project and found no one was willing to tackle the construction at the price borough officials had initially estimated. Since then, Paone and Kutzor have been attempting to bring those costs closer to the borough’s original expectations.

The borough will have until January 2021 to make a final decision on those bids.