As the May 17 meeting of the Macungie Borough Council opened, it was announced council Vice President Roseann Schleicher has resigned from council effective immediately due to health issues. She expressed she wanted to get away from the stress of the council and the only way she could do that was to back off entirely.

Stan Wojciechowski, the engineer from Barry Isett & Associates, Inc., said at the last meeting, they were in the process of reviewing concerns about the borough’s ability to provide water to a new development, Macungie Commons.

Wojciechowski said upon review of their request, it is apparent the borough has plenty of water to provide the development within capacity in their wells, storage tanks, etc.

For the Main Street Streetscape, it was announced the Department of Community and Economic Development grant money could be used to cover costs toward the legal, design and construction administration aspects of the project and more.

The scope of improvements currently comes in at $434,150, which is slightly less than the money awarded. However, council feels confident they can adjust the scope of the project to fit the designated funding capacity. All voted to accept the grant, except council member Angela Ashbrook who voted against.

Regarding the Estates at Brookside partial improvements security release #6, no council members voted against releasing funds in relation to the development as it is in the process of being handed over from the developer to the borough.

Council member Todd Rutledge reported Macungie Memorial Park is looking for volunteers for events. Interested parties should contact drang@ptd.net. For information on events or dates of shows, visit http://www.macungiepark.com.

Macungie Institute board of trustees member Rosanne McGinn discussed the reopening of Macungie Institute for activities and wanted to know how to respond to inquiries about rentals from the community. She mentioned there was a lot to be done to get the institute back open, but she was quite intent on getting it started.

However, there was an issue regarding logging the calls to gauge interest. There was discussion of hiring someone to field the phone calls.

A community member in attendance was concerned about drivers in his neighborhood endangering children by reckless driving and he inquired about installing a stop sign. John Yerman, council president, informed the citizen it is not under the purview of the council to regulate roadways and he would be advised to go through the Pennsylvania Department of Transportation.

Macungie Police Department Sgt. Travis Kocher offered to monitor some of the speeding issues in the development in question to assess the need for potential regulatory steps.