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- January 5th 2009 is the Board of Supervisors Reorganization meeting. All appointments, salaries and the meeting schedule for 2009 will be determined at this meeting.
- from NOC Blog:
Lower Nazareth Crime Watch
Next meeting is this Friday, December 5th, at 7:00 PM, Township Municipal Building, Buztown Road.
The agenda are as follows:
- 1. Recap our accomplishments to date.
- 2. Township Police Blotter
- 3. Membership comments.
- 4. Future organizational topics.
Joe Fresco at LNTcrimewatch@aol.com or 610-837-3446
- At the BOS Mtg. last night (12/03/08)the 2009 Budget was passed with No Tax Increase, the millage will remain 4.15. Updated budget will be posted in Other Documents tab as soon as available. Draft ‘09 Budget is there now.
At the BOS Mtg. of 11/19/2008 during the Managers Report, Mr. Tenges expressed his displeasure with this site as well as the LNTCF Blog. You can read the minutes of that meeting in Scheduled Meetings tab, or swing over to the Blog, see my comments and let me know what you think. (The Blog allows anonymous posting)
- At the Nov 5, 2008 Board of Supervisors meeting the topic of Contractor Licensing in the Township was addressed as noted earlier. Township Solicitor, Mr. Gary Asteak reported that the State Legislature passed an act that in essence supersedes local ordinances dealing with contractor licensing to take effect in 2009. As such, the anticipated Lower Nazareth Twp. (LNT) ordinance would not yield the results desired and is not worth the effort.
Most of the info on this meeting is in the form of comments and opinions. Please see: The LNT Blog for my write up.
It’s that time of year again when the budgets are developed and delivered. The auditors have completed the analysis of the 2007 financial condition of the Township. See 2007 Financial Audit in the Other Documents page.
As proposed, there is No Tax Increase in the 2009 LNT budget. I have not had a chance to go through the package yet, but it is available on the Other Documents page, see Budget Draft 09. It also includes info on the Library budget and Colonial Regional Police.
In other business the Board reduced the Traffic Impact fees for Greenfield Development in exhange for improvements to the intersection of Hanoverville Rd. & Keystone Drive. LNT-33-08
- New meeting minutes and documents are now searchable. In the past they were PDF files but were in image format. They are now created with OCR (Optical Character Recognition) technology and generate actual text based files. Occasionally it will generate a typo, please be tolerant.
- October 22, 2008 BOS Meeting was cancelled due to lack of a quorum. Mr. Kucsan, Mr. Dilsaver and Mr. Murphy were unable to attend.
At the next meeting (Nov. 5th 2008) expect to hear about a pending new ordinance regarding contractors operating in the township. At the 09/24/08 meeting Mr. Tenges asked the supervisors to authorize Gary Asteak (Twp. Solicitor) to draft an ordinance with penalties for noncompliance incorporated, requiring any company or individual that does business in the township to obtain a “license to do business” in the township. Tim said it’s tough keeping track of them all, especially the driveway contractors. As an afterthought Tim asked Gary to make sure it includes provisions applicable to trash & recycle haulers. If past performance is any indicator I’m sure there will be plenty of Township imposed Fees for “services” provided.
- October 08, 2008 Board of Supervisors meeting has been cancelled. Next scheduled meeting is Oct. 22nd, 2008 at 7:30pm. (The Twp. Mgr. had other plans and requested the meeting be cancelled.)
- Missed three meetings this summer and since the Board never had a quorum for approving the prior meetings minutes, I had nothing to post. Attended the September 10th meeting and the three prior meeting session minutes were approved (ignore the Unapproved watermark, these are the minutes as approved excluding some typos.) Unless I missed something, it doesn’t appear anything earth shattering occurred at the meetings.
The traffic ordinance restricting truck traffic on some local roads was approved. Following is from the 07/16/08 meeting/Solicitors report:
Traffic Restriction Ordinance - # 195-07-08 - Mr. Kortze’s review letters dated June 11,2008 for Truck Restrictions on Hollo Road, Georgetown Road, Hanoverville Road and Steuben Road; as well as a July 7, 2008 review letter for Parking Restrictions on Keystone Drive support this ordinance; therefore they should be attached to the ordinance. In addition, the penalty is now a $50 fine for all posted restrictions. Solicitor Asteak added that although the ordinance goes into effect immediately, it is not enforceable until the appropriate traffic control devices are erected.
- Long overdue Pension changes - How about more then DOUBLING the Township employee pensions? Yep, that was long overdue. Here’s the original plan, now take a look at the new plan. At a time when the economy is slowing and we are already spending more then we are taking in - this just doesn’t seem reasonable to me.
Consider this, Fortune 500 companies that have already frozen one or more of their pension plans include 3M, Alcoa, DuPont, I.B.M., Nortel, Northrop Grumman, Verizon and Whirlpool, among others. (Source New York Times 11/19/2008)
- A couple miscellaneous items of interest - The township has an ordinance pending which would restrict large truck traffic on some local roads. It should be approved at the next Supervisors meeting (07/16/08).
Article on township web sites in The Morning Call - CobWebs and a more complete review at News Over Coffee (this is also the best site to keep up with the activities of our local school board.)
Colonial Regional Police (CRPD) are requesting a local ordinance to permit them to issue citations on private property.
- LNT Summer Crimewatch Update (copied from NewsOverCoffee) for more info contact Joe Fresco at LNTcrimewatch@aol.com or 610-837-3446.
Couple new articles on the warehouses (see news)
- Minutes of 03/12/08 and 04/09/08 posted. List of roads tentatively scheduled for micro-surfacing click here. At the 04/23/08 BOS Meeting the Twp. Mgr. requested and received Board Authorization to advertise for Full-depth reclamation of a group of township roads. Twp. Manager advised the Board “....a Lot of roads need a LOT of work” and it’s going to be very expensive. (despite Mr. Dilsaver’s earlier proclamation that Lower Nazareth has some of the finest roads in the Lehigh Valley)
Tenges asked for a vote to move the Pension funds. Mr. Murphy asked what the advantages were, basically none except Timm likes these two guys. It appears that the rates and fees for Philadelphia Trust Co, are higher, but Felcheck and Spangler (spelling?) were willing to match the fee schedule at National Penn (formerly KNBT) to get the business. A motion authorizing the move of funds failed with Mr. Kucsan and Mr. Nagle voting to move the money, and Mr. Murphy and Mr. Dilsaver voting against. Mr. Johnson was absent.
- The conditional Use Hearing, CU 2008-01, for First Industrial (see Express Times Article for info on project and location) was deferred at the request of First Industrial until the August 6th meeting. Bowling Alley and Warehouse - what kind of combination is that?
During Managers Comments, Tim Tenges stated he wanted to move the Townships pension assets from National Penn (formerly KNBT) to Philadelphia Trust Co. He stated he wasn’t asking the Supervisors for a decision tonight, was just giving a heads up. Felcheck and Spangler (spelling?) of Philadelphia Trust Co. gave Tenges a presentation and he said he liked it. Tenges did not provide any information about the presentation or benefits/risks to the Township of making the change. Maybe he will before the Supervisors vote on it?
Under Courtesy of the Floor the Supervisors heard from the Corvette Club of Easton who were represented by Mr. Charles Gordon. Basically the Corvette Club has been holding “Cruise Nights” for the past eleven years at Northampton Crossings without incident; with all proceeds going to Camelot for Children (a great charity) until the township staff told them they couldn’t anymore. That is unless they wanted to move to the Burger King parking lot and cut the show in half. The Supervisors thanked them for coming and noted Camelot for Kids is a good charity (but they took no action nor made any recommendations) after Tenges said it’s not for the Board to decide, it’s a zoning issue.
- IDI wants to go to court, apparently they are not satisfied with the conditions imposed which would limit the damages they could inflict on the lives of township residents. Reported in the Morning Call.
- First Industrial LLC seeks Conditional Use approval to establish a Planned Business Development for a three-lot subdivision, specifically retail/hotel/restaurant with a warehouse/distribution use to the rear of the property; the development is proposed along Route 248. A Conditional Use Hearing has been scheduled for the April 9, 2008 LNT Board of Supervisor’s Meeting. (See the Legal Notice Here.)
- Not everyone’s happy about the conditions imposed on the IDI warehouse project. The Supervisors received two letters complaining about the conditions; one from the property owner (selling to IDI) and one from Porsche (buying from IDI ??) The letters were read in to the record, but the Board took no action at this time.
- 02/27/2008 BOS Meeting the Board approved the IDI Warehouses bordering Palmer Twp. However, they imposed conditions that would minimize the impact on the adjoining residential neighborhoods. See the Morning Call and Express Times articles for details. Minutes (unapproved here)
The IDI Conditional Approval available now.
The Township manager (Timm Tenges) has hired a pension consultant to make some “long overdue” changes. He will report the results to the Board at a later date. And Supervisor Patrick Murphy wants to restrict firearms. (Looking for attention? Read the minutes)
- Board of Supervisor’s Meeting was brief Dec. 5, 2007. The 2008 Budget was approved with no discussion or questions. The numbers kind of surprised me, I did a little comparison with Upper Nazareth Township’s 2008 budget. It’s an interesting read. Head over to the Blog to see and comment. For a quick peek how we compare to Upper Nazareth Township view this: Compare
(Many of these items duplicated on the Blog site where you can add a comment)
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