BOROUGH OF SLATINGTON The Finance Planning/Zoning, Public Safety and Human/Community Services Committee Workshop Meetings were held on January 20, 2020 in Council Room, 125 South Walnut Street, Slatington, PA 18080. The meeting was called to order by President Reed at 6:30 PM with the following in attendance: PRESENT ABSENT OTHERS PRESENT VISITORS Bryon Reed Joseph Wechsler Jason Ruff Daniel Stevens Thomas Bartholomew Kevin Steckel PUBLIC COMMENT: NONE A. FINANCE/PLANNINGIZONING Thomas Bartholomew - Chairman; Members: Kevin Steckel, Jason Ruff 1. Committee Member Discussion: a. The committee discussed the appointment to Police Pension Committee. President Reed stated there should be 1 councilor appointed by the council president, borough secretary, 1 citizen appointed by council, 1 elected by the police. The committee discussed possible candidates. This is a 2-year term. This will be placed on the next regular council agenda. b. The committee discussed the letter from Sentry Insurance Group notice of non-renewal rental for Suite 220 as of January 315t, 2020. The committee agreed the office may need to be refreshed in preparation for rental. This will be placed on the next regular council agenda. C. Councilor Bartholomew discussed closing the Sewer Authority office and approving borough crew to remove furnishing. He feels this is an added expense for the borough. The authority only meets 4 times a year. Councilor Bartholomew would like to have the file cabinets placed in one of the borough's office and the authority would use the borough conference room for their meetings, then rent that suite. The committee is concerned about having all the historical sewer files in one central location. Councilor Bartholomew also suggested doing an energy audit on this building. He feels the building is very energy inefficient. There is a service that will do an audit for free. Councilor Wechsler suggested obtaining programmable thermostats. Councilor Bartholomew would also like to change the fire house completely to gas. 1 There were no questions from the committee members; the Finance Committee Meeting was adjourned. B. PUBLIC SAFETY Kevin Steckel-Chairman; Members: Thomas Bartholomew, Jason Ruff 1. Committee Member Discussion a. Councilor Ruff discussed possibly designating some Main Street parking spots as handicapped parking. He stated there are no handicapped parking on the 600 block of Main Street. Also, there are a lot of seniors that go to the post office and the diner. He suggested having one in front of the post office and one in front of the diner. President Reed stated most ofthe parking spaces are used occasionally. There is a handicap space in the John Freed Way parking lot. The committee discussed possible ideas for obtaining more parking spaces. It had been suggested to get all the business owners together to discuss the parking problem. b. The committee discussed granting business owners some type of extended parking permit for community lots. The committee agreed on an idea to offer businesses a permit from 10:00 AM to 7:00 PM for parking in John Freed Way. These topics will be discussed with the chief of police. The overnight parking permits will be reviewed. President Reed suggested providing overnight parking permits on a yearly basis. If the permit is not used for a whole year, then they would be reimbursed for the remainder of the year. This will be placed on the next committee agenda. President Reed informed the committee the chiefi is requesting a quote from Keystone Technologies to add more security for the police computers. There were no questions from the committee members; the Public Safety Committee meeting was adjourned. C. HUMAN/COMMUNITY SERVICES Jason Ruff - Chairman; Members: Kevin Steckel, Thomas Bartholomew 1. Committee Member Discussion a. Councilor Ruff discussed the park improvement plans. Councilor Ruff and Lindsey Taylor from NRLA have plans for improvements. Lindsey pointed out there are 18 trees around the disc golf course. She has suggested they be removed and then move all the live trees from Main Street up to the park to replace the trees that had been removed, then obtain a grant to replace all trees consistently, the same tree, all on Main Street; also add larger garbage cans on Main Street. This will be placed on the next committee agenda. There were no questions from the committee members; the Human/Community Services meeting was adjourned. PUBLIC COMMENT: None 2 INFORMATIONAL ITEMS: There will be a special meeting on Monday, January 27th, 2020, with the Sewer Authority at 6:30 PM om Council Room, 125 South Walnut Street, Slatington, PA 18080. Councilor Bartholomew made a motion, duly seconded by, Councilor Steckel, to adjourn. Being no further business, President Reed declared the meeting adjourned at 8:07 PM. Colleen Bresnak Assistant Borough Secretary 3