Road crew receives more funds
BY SUSAN BRYANT
One of the agenda items at the Aug. 8 Weisenberg Township supervisors’ meeting was the budget for Roadmaster Tony Werley and the road crew.
Treasurer Jeff Strauss said Werley budgeted $990,000 for road repairs and he has spent $976,000 so far, which leaves him with only $14,000 for the rest of the year.
After a brief discussion, Supervisors Linda Gorgas and Richard Bleiler agreed to give Werley another $100,000 for his budget.
In addition, the board discussed renewal of a license for C. Lick Jr. Salvage Inc, 9975 Old Route 22, Fogelsville.
“I was down there a couple times, one because there was a pile of tires on fire, but since then they did get rid of 11 loads and the pile is drastically smaller,” Township Administrator Brian Carl stated. “It looks a lot better than what it did. He is back to an average junkyard.”
After a brief discussion, the board granted the salvage yard an extension until the end of the year.
The board then briefly discussed the employee handbook amendments drafted at last month’s executive session before adopting addendum No. 4 in the employee handbook.
The next agenda item under old business was the approval to advertise the fire inspection ordinance.
“We had a presentation that seemed like everyone was comfortable with the direction on where we’re going,” Carl said. “So, if you guys are OK with it, we’ll advertise the ordinance for adoption at the September meeting.”
The board approved a motion for Carl to advertise for the fire inspection ordinance.
The last agenda item the board discussed under old business was the Creamery and Winding Road culvert engineering proposal.
Carl said due to the size of the project, and they are not getting any government funds, the township is going to have to do the project on its own.
“We did get pricing from Barry Isett and Keystone to essentially handle all of the engineering, permitting, design, supervision of construction, helping with the bid packages, closing out the permits and anything else,” Carl stated.
He said Barry Isett Associates came in at $107,000 and included two items that Keystone did not.
One is the wetlands delineation and the Phase 1 bog turtle study; the other is the geotechnical evaluation.
“I did get estimates from Keystone for about $8,000 for the Geotech and another $5,400 for the wetland’s delineation. That would be on top of the estimate of $59,575. So, we would be around $75,000,” Carl stated.
After a brief discussion, the board approved a motion to accept Carl’s recommendation to go with Keystone Engineering at a cost of $75,000.
The first item on the agenda under new business was the Multi-Municipal Comprehensive Plan.
“We’re officially in the 45-day public comment period,” Carl stated.
He added the public can view the drafted plan at plannel.org and there is a little comment box on there where they can submit their comments.
“The public comment period closes Sept. 19 and then we will get sent a copy of all the comments that are out there,” he said.
He added the original plan after the public comment period had ended was for all the townships to get together at the end of September, but that does not seem is going to work.
“We’re just going to have six individual adoption hearings the night of our regularly scheduled board meeting,” Carl stated. “So, ours will be probably at 6:30 p.m. Oct. 10, that is the first meeting after public comment.
Under the supervisor’s report, Bleiler said the Northwestern Lehigh Veterans Memorial Committee has shifted into a maintenance type mode, but there are also a few new names that need to be inscribed on the wall, which now gets very expensive.
He will be putting numbers together and coming to all the townships with a proposal to add some sort of annual maintenance type support in their budgets.
“They are planning a big Memorial Day next year, some sort of program drive-through and all sort of ideas for fundraising,” said Bleiler.
He added the Lehigh County Association of Township Officials convention will be Sept. 16.
“It will be an all-day event, but it’s going to be held at Lone Lane Park, Upper Macungie Township,” Carl said. “There will be lots of speakers, the equipment rodeo and we are doing food trucks, so people will get a ticket to get a steak sandwich or whatever.”