Happy New Year, everyone. Welcome to 2025!

I hope you’ve had an enjoyable Christmas with your family and friends and are looking forward to all the optimism a new year brings — a time for new beginnings and that special resolution you’re planning to attempt. My best wishes for your success in reaching that goal and making that life-changing event a reality.

As your mayor, I have plenty of activities and initiatives on my list to accomplish this year, with a plethora of ideas coming to mind just about every day. As they’re all important to me, it’s tough to list them in any particular order given their seasonality.

Most importantly for me, though, I look to continue growing my relationship with our new borough manager and assistant borough manager, Brian Welsko and Jerry Serensits, respectively, as well as borough council. While I’ve enjoyed working with both Brian and Jerry throughout these past years, their new positions bring a new mindset for me in respecting and working with their current roles and responsibilities.

It’s been a pleasure to continue working alongside of these two, promoting my initiatives. With their enthusiasm, understanding and drive being nothing short of impressive and encouraging, we can be sure of the growth and safety of our town. That goes for all of our borough administration, too. LeRoy Brobst, you taught them well.

To bring you up to date on some of my 2025 initiatives, I’ll start with a surprise. Given the continuing interest in the Hometown Heroes banners and that I don’t want to see anyone left behind, I will be reopening the project and taking new applications April 1-18. This way, banners can be processed and back for Memorial Day.

This is a hard deadline, so if you’d like to get your hero a banner, be ready to go with an application and suitable photo by April. Applications are available at borough hall and online.

Next, having the pleasure to work with Northampton Area High School art students under the tutelage of Holly Weitknecht, my mural project continues to take shape. As I continue to seek out more buildings around town on which to place these murals, these students are using their artistic talents to come up with works featuring historic Northampton sights and events.

From what I’ve seen to date, their drawings are far exceeding expectations — with more great ideas to come, for sure!

As we trudge through winter, it’s encouraging that our days are getting longer, as is the outlook for Canal Street Park foliage plantings this spring. Know the planning for additional plantings and expansion of our monarch butterfly waystations is already well underway.

Working with Councilmen Jason Donohue and Ron Knopf, we have a very colorful and hearty list of flowers, shrubs and trees to order and plant along the D&L Trail in the park come spring, ones that will last and bloom through the seasons. I know Rich Ackerman’s public works department will be ready to roll as the weather eventually warms up for good.

I’m anxious to see the three new monarch sites in the park in full bloom this year. As an aside, the trail is still a great place for a walk or a bike ride on some of the warmer days we’re experiencing. Let’s stay in shape for 2025!

Among other noteworthy activities for 2025, Northampton Fire Department will hold a breakfast, scheduled for 8-11 a.m. Jan. 12 at the fire station on Lerchenmiller Drive. The cost of this meal to start your day is $11 for adults ages 13-64, $9 for seniors 65 and older and $6 for children ages 5-12. Children under age 5 eat for free. This is a wonderful opportunity to support our outstanding fire department and enjoy its culinary breakfast delights.

Welcome to 2025 and all the opportunities we have ahead of us in this new year. Even with our new administration in its early days, there is plenty of optimism and excitement in planning and carrying out 2025’s initiatives.

This new year is a blank canvas, just waiting for us to fill it with our life’s picture. It’s time to paint your masterpiece!