Comments . . .

First, I want to thank all (2 of) my faithful readers. I'm just kidding about the 2 part - I know quite a few folks read this blog. Can you believe I've actually gotten hits from Iraq and Russia? Go figure . . .

Anyway, the purpose of this post is concerning comments. As much as I love to read your comments (please keep them coming), I had to make a change to require folks to sign-in to leave comments. Even with the little "fill in the letters" field thing, I have been receiving tons and tons of SPAM that I need to weed through every day. More often than not, there weren't any comments to be had. The other advantage of this will allow me to reply directly to any questions that you had.

As always, you can always email me or leave me voice mail messages using the links below and on the right hand side of the page.

Thanks again for reading! See you soon! :)

Borough Council Roundup - August 2008

Hello everyone! I know, you've probably thought I dropped off the face of the earth. That's probably the farthest from the truth. Life has a way of getting ahead of you at times.

In any event, this month's Borough Council meeting was relatively short as Council meetings go, and the only thing worth reporting on was the Tatamy Hunt Streetlighting. It seems we're still at an impasse with the utility (MetEd). Our Engineer Bob Mack is supposed to be reaching out to them to find out what our other options are - to include potentially digging up the wiring so it can be inspected by the utility so they can assume liability for the maintenance of the lights. The issue is that the Borough doesn't have the resources to maintain the street lights on our own. All the other lights in the Borough are maintained by PP&L. Since PP&L isn't the provider of electric service in Tatamy Hunt (through an agreement with MetEd and PPL devised by the builder - the only logic I can assume was for convenience) PPL won't assume responsibility for the lights. The Borough isn't a client of MetEd, so they won't take care of them either. During the meeting, I asked if the Palmer Township portion of the development had streetlights. The answer was "yes", and that is because Palmer has their own Public Works department that maintains them. I suggested that if we don't get anywhere with MetEd or PPL, perhaps we could approach Palmer and see what they can offer us. Bottom line - the folks in Tatamy Hunt need street lighting. With the shorter days of autumn and winter not too far down the road, this needs to be finished - quickly.

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Some Thoughts . . .

I apologize for the lack of posting lately. I have been computerless - my home PC crashed (along with all my data - thankfully I had backups of everything that was important).

There have been a few questions posted (via comments) here that I have neglected to answer, so here goes, in no particular order:

1. "How come the office door is always closed?" It's summertime and the air conditioning is on. The office hours are clearly posted on the door. If you find that the office is locked when it's supposed to be open (and there's no notice posted on the door) please let me know immediately.

2. "Who is minding the hours of the secretaries other than themselves; who monitors their expenditures; who reviews their actions?" That responsibility ultimately lies with the Borough Council President, who assures me that he's minding the store. Regarding the expenditures, Council reviews and approves, monthly, the budget and spending for the entire borough, not just the borough office.

3. "Why is the office being used as an Avon distribution depot?" That's a new one. Do you have proof? If so, please let me know and I'll investigate futher.

4. "What are the chances of an official borough website?" Well, it just so happens that I'm working on a beta version of a website as we speak. Unfortunately all the data was lost in my computer crash (it wasn't included in my backups) so now I'm starting again from scratch. Be on the lookout for something soon. BTW - our domain name is "tatamypa.org".

5. The July council roundup will be coming - probably later this evening or tomorrow night.

Thanks for the feedback. It's very helpful.

See you around town!

Porsche Coming to Chrin Commerce Centre

Porsche announced last night at the Palmer Township Supervisors Meeting that they plan to build a 130,000 square foot facility in the Palmer Township section of the Chrin Commerce Centre. The building will also include a 15,000 square foot indoor test track for driving their latest vehicles and reviewing information with dealers. Formal plans will be submitted once Palmer Township rezones the area to allow projects such as this. Supervisors recommended 3-0 to send the recommended changes to the Planning Commission.

This facility will replace the planned Porsche facility that was proposed and approved along Newburg Road in Lower Nazareth Township. That deal fell through due to the large number of restrictions Lower Nazareth put on the industrial park.

While in Palmer, I believe that this is a huge win for the area overall. The Express Times has an article here. Stay tuned - I'm sure there will be more to follow.

June Borough Council Round-up

Hello everyone - here's a brief summary of the June Council Meeting held last Monday for all those who are interested:

1. Dale Fern attended a class that discussed putting together a rental property inspection and presented the results of the class to Council. Council asked Dale to form a committee to determine the types of requirements and what would be needed to put together a program to inspect rental properties within the borough, to include fees, timing, etc. We will most likely readdress this next month.

2. Zoning Officer John Soloe presented a new proposed fee schedule; basically upgrading our permit and application fees to align with other municipalities, and to allow for more commercial development. Council tabled further discussion on this until next month.

3. Borough Engineer Bob Mack presented a few items:

- A report on the street lights in the new Chrin Commerce Center - they are in fact powered by PPL feeds, so we won't have to deal with the same issue that we've been dealing with for months now in the Tatamy Hunt subdivision with the change in power providers (MetEd vs. the borough's provider PPL Utilities) when it comes time to turn on the street lights. Speaking of the street lights in Tatamy Hunt, we are no closer to coming to an agreement on that one. I believe the borough is going to go back to the developer and make them resolve it.

- The contractor for the Chrin Commerce Center may be coming before Council next month to request i) a realignment of a few lot lines to make them align with the Palmer Township/Tatamy Borough line, and ii) to rename a few of the streets within the development to accomodate a potential tenant.

4. Council (me) presented a few ideas to the Borough Secretary on how to improve her meeting notes. For those of you who attend the meetings regularly, you will know that I and a few others are very particular with the minutes that are published, and will not hesitate to point out mistakes, misspellings, etc. that are contained in them. The minutes of our meetings are public records - they will go on in history forever - and if they are not 100% accurate, do not reflect what truly went on. Anyway, I gave her some suggestions, and hope to see some real improvement soon. We shall see . . .

5. Just a reminder, in preparation for the completion of the new High Street Park, the new stop sign has been installed at the corner of 6th and High Streets. This is now a 4-way stop intersection! Please pay special attention to it (e.g. don't go through it . . . ).

6. Larry Koehler, Chairman of the Sewer Authority, reported that they will, at this month's meeting, plan to adopt the new fee schedule. Sewer billing will be delayed by a week and will reflect the new schedule.

That's about it for this month. As always, let me know if you have any questions!

Thanks for stopping by.