Borough Council - Regular Meeting

Thank you.

It's a nice thing.

I appreciate that for you.

All right.

God or... from the Borough Council, regular meeting, July 28, 2020, 6 to 7 p.m. May I have a roll call, please?

Here.

Here. Here. Here. Here.

Here.

Here.

Anybody like to give an indication? Can we stand for a moment of silence, please? thank you not enough executive sessions there were nine additions deletions realization of the agenda I will

to make a motion is to approve the agenda as published.

Seconded.

I have a motion by Councilman Zink, seconded by Councilman Byers, to approve the agenda as published. All in favor say aye. Aye.

Citizen comments?

There is no sign. minutes for approval um consider approval of the borough council meeting minutes for july 14 2026 they do need amended um at the agenda they show the vote for the agenda change but they don't show a vote for what's added so we'll let you have to add the vote for what's been added which is section nine i THE ORDINANCE TO CHANGE DATE CENTERS ON USE. SO WE CAN EITHER IMPROVE IT WITH THOSE CHANGES, OR WE CAN MAKE CERTAIN COMMUNITIES SUCCESS.

I WOULD LIKE TO JUST MAKE SURE THAT I believe that there are some things in the minutes that need to be a little more verbose. I think when we started taking out the details from the agenda, the agenda item is just getting copied into the minutes. But when we're talking about, we're going to approve the payment number one for the one in 200 block of Walnut Street absolutely should be having in there the amount that we are paying and we have to be able to track that and that's an audit issue if we're approving payments and what we approve does not match what the auditor so are you saying this is something going forward that they suggested I believe that it does yes

So let's hold off on proving this. Presentations. The audit results from Boyer and Witter.

All right.

Thanks for having that up, Jack. So good evening, everyone. My name's . I'm commonly go by Z. I've been here for a couple of years doing this presentation with you all. I'm a principal with Horner and Ritter, a person responsible for overseeing the annual audit, and I'm here to see if I can present on the 2025 audit for you. So if you go to the next slide here, talking about the independent auditor's report, it's really the part of the audit that we as the audit firm are responsible for. It's found, if you have the, some of you do, have the financial report in front of you. It's found right after the table of contents. It's labeled independent auditor's report and starts with that opinions paragraph. And within that paragraph, we note that the borough has received an unmodified opinion stating that it has complied or the report is accurately reported in accordance with the modified cash basis of accounting in all material respects. This is really the best possible result that you can expect to receive from an audit. It's a clean opinion. It's really what you would expect what you've received in the past. After that, we identified the basis for our opinions. We identified that we conducted the audit in accordance with the generally accepted auditing standards. We are independent of the borough and we've met our ethical responsibilities in conducting the audit. We've also obtained necessary supporting documentation for the amounts that are reported in the financial statements. After that, the emphasis of matter paragraph just identifies that the borrower's report is presented in accordance with that modified cash basis of accounting. This is something that's very common amongst municipalities throughout the commonwealth here. It's an acceptable form of reporting in accordance with the state laws that govern municipalities. On the second page, then, the management responsibilities, we identify that management is the one responsible for that financial report, as well as the internal controls over the financial transactions that occur throughout the year. Then we, as the auditors, are responsible for providing an opinion, of course, on this financial report. We also identify here that we obtain reasonable assurance in conducting our audit. Noting here that reasonable assurance is not absolute. When we come in, we do things on a sample and test basis. We're not able to look at every single transaction that's occurred throughout the year. After that, supplementary and other information, just referring to the other pieces within the financial statements that are listed out in the table of contents. Those are a couple of the budget schedules that are in the back, as well as some pension and OPEB schedules that are found in the back of the report. Basically, our responsibility is to make sure that they're not materially misstated and that they are in agreement with other parts of the financial report, noting here that they are reported accurate. So after that, we go to the next slide here. Just a condensed table of contents. So outside of that independent auditor report, the rest of that 45 44, 45-page document. This is what you'll find in there. The bulk of it is that footnote section, pages 10 through 34. Here on this slide, I'm just identifying some of the most significant of the footnotes that provide detail on some of the amounts that are in the front of the financial statements. So I'm going to go to the next and just take a brief look at some of the numbers. Might be a little small on the screen. MY AGENTS HERE, SO I CAN SEE SOME OF IT. LOOKING HERE AT THE GENERAL FUND RESULTS, OF COURSE, THE GENERAL FUND, THE MAIN OPERATING FUND, ACCOUNTING FOR THE DAY-TO-DAY TRANSACTIONS THAT OCCUR HERE, THE MONEY THAT COMES IN, THE DISBURSEMENTS THAT ARE PAID OUT AS WELL. TOP SECTION, THE TOTAL REVENUES, COMPARING 2025 TO 2024, WE SEE AN INCREASE OF ABOUT $1.9 MILLION IN REVENUES FOR THE BUREAU THIS PAST YEAR. compared to last. This was largely due to real estate tax increase as well as some intergovernmental grant revenues that had come in to pay for some projects going on here in the borough. Following that same trend, the expenditures have increased as well from the previous year, roughly increase from the previous year there. Again, increase here, you have your standard cost of living increases that affect wages, insurance, just general inflationary increases, and then as well as some of those projects that were done this past year, including the National Watch and Clock renovation project, which that was funded with the grant revenue that I mentioned Bottom line on the general fund, you see ending fund balance about $2.9 million, a decrease of about $300,000 from the previous year. Going to the next, take a look at the capital projects fund. Here, the revenue predominantly made up of the intergovernmental revenue this year. Again, some grant money that had come in to pay for projects. that's accounted for there the expenditures up about 1.8 again accounting for all those various projects and then you see a negative number this year in the ending fund balance so a deficit in that fund balance this is really due to a timing issue money from the loan that was issued near the end of the year 2025. That money had not yet come in by the end of 2025, as well as some grant money. The actual cash had not come in, but payments had to be made for the projects to continue going. So that's a negative number. Those expenditures were funded by the general fund at that time. and then ultimately being repaid once the money from the outside had come in, repaying the general fund. So that's going to put things back to even at least. Next one here, then. The government-wide assets and liabilities. Because the borough does report on a modified cash basis, really the only asset that it has to report is the cash and investments. And that's what we have here you see over the last three years with 2025 total cash and investments of the borough being just around 1.9 million. The middle portion of this slide shows that the borough does have pension trust funds for its employees the police in the non-uniform with investments held for those employees retirement in the future and you see that amount is 17.2 roughly an increase of about 1.8 million from the previous year and then the general obligation bonds roughly 7 million this was the issuance from 2021 that the borough has obligations to pay which runs through about 2038 for my note here. As I mentioned, the borough did issue debt back here at the end of 2025 to fund some of the work at the McGinnis property. I think that was around $5 million. Drawdowns would occur after that issuance. One more slide here. No numbers on it. It may or may not be part of your packet there. It would have been a separate document called the required communication letter. And within this, just a few points to highlight, which are here on this slide. I think they're all positive. So no uncorrected misstatements, no disagreements with management, no significant issues discussed, and no significant difficulties encountered during our audit. Jack, Brian, Lori as well, always very, very helpful, gathering documents that we requested, answering all of our questions, or just being there whenever we needed them in order to finish the audit. So certainly appreciate all their help and effort throughout that process. And it helped the audit go as smoothly as it can, even though there's been transition here over the past year or so, different individuals coming into the positions, but they were certainly very helpful. That is all I had. Just a final slide with my contact information. Should you have any questions, certainly feel free to reach out to me. Happy to help. Any questions this evening?

I'd just like to thank you for getting this done, and your patience as well. I know we've put you off a couple times now.

It's all right. It's all right. It's understandable. Things happen. Glad to be here this evening, though.

I would like to thank you for your continued guidance as we go through. I know several times I've said, Jack, I think that's an audit issue. You better contact Steve. And you always go for them.

Certainly try to help whenever we can.

I noticed there were a couple of things in here that we talked about this year. And I saw that those weren't changed. But with that being said, I know that we went through quite a bit of turmoil this past year.

So hopefully we can get to work on that now if we feel it's necessary.

And also with the change in banks, I'm sure that there's probably going to be a couple things that will have to be changed financially. PROCEDURES, POLICIES, AND THINGS LIKE THAT THAT WE'LL LOOK AT NEXT YEAR. THANK YOU. THANK YOU. THANK YOU, ZEE. THANK YOU. THANK YOU. THANK YOU ALL. THANK YOU. THANK YOU ALL. THANK YOU.

HAVE A GOOD EVENING.

HAVE A GOOD EVENING. HAVE A GOOD EVENING. THANK YOU. THANK YOU. THANK YOU.

THANK YOU. THANK YOU, ZEE.

THANK YOU, ZEE. THANK YOU, ZEE. THANK YOU. THANK YOU, ZEE. THANK YOU ALL. THANK YOU ALL.

THANK YOU ALL. THANK YOU ALL. THANK YOU ALL. THANK YOU ALL. THANK YOU.

THANK YOU. THANK YOU. THANK YOU. THANK YOU.

THANK YOU. THANK YOU. THANK YOU. THANK YOU. THANK YOU. THANK YOU. THANK YOU.

THANK YOU. THANK YOU. THANK First off, I want to thank our Columbia River Police Department, Chief Larm, all our officers, the District Attorney's Office. I talked with the District Attorney yesterday and thanked her, but I want to do this publicly. District Attorney's Office, the County Detectives, the Sheriffs, everybody involved in two past shooting deaths. Well, one shooting death and one stabbing death. The amount of hours, and I know Tom knows, the amount of hours that all the personnel put in over the past two weeks is insurmountable. A lot of hours were put into this. I know people were tired. Sometimes at wit's end, they were two different cases. There was a lot of information that had to be processed. Especially when you're dealing with juveniles that approach things in a completely different way. I just want to thank everybody involved in that. Super job to factor good police work all around. So I want to thank everybody for that, and I want to thank the public. other thing is we had talked here a couple weeks ago and we got together and we started talking about this issue and i heard someone talk about it here earlier tonight about the electric bikes and scooters and things like that and we said that we would be coming out with with some information some rules and regulations and things like that and we're going to work on that obviously we had about a two-week uh stalemate on on doing some other things but uh We had agreed that starting now, anybody riding a bike, e-bike, scooter, whatever have you, from sunset to sunrise, they don't have lights front and back. That includes scooters. Lights on the front, blinking red light on the back. We're going to pull them over. officer sees them i expect the officer to pull them over we're going to warn them if it continues and we'll cite these are in accordance with the pa statutes and we will start rolling out more as time goes on we didn't want to come out with a blanket okay this is every rule you've got to follow we want to ease into this so that those folks using those Those vehicles, alcohol, they learn and ease into it so that the parents recognize it. And it's not just everything lumped on them all at one time. And with the bike event you're going to have here in Cotonou, we'll roll some of that into it, some of that education into it. So we're still looking at it. I just got a copy this afternoon of rules and regulations that which are basically those basically out of the PA statute. So, and there's a lot of talk in the legislature about these things. And I know there were some accidents. There was someone in Newark County, the young man in Newark County was still lying in his way. Bottom line right now, if you're out there after dark on a scooter or a bike, and you don't have lights on, you're going to get stopped. People will come back and say, well you can't put lights on a scooter. Yes you can.

Yes you can.

They sell them. It's going to be hard stopping all this all at one time. It's easier to phase biggest safety issue. I'm sure everybody here can probably say sometime at night, if they've gone down the street, someone went with and by them, or they come upon someone on a bike or a scooter, and they didn't have lights on. And more than likely were wearing dark clothes. And that's, that shapes you up. I'll try to stop that.

Molly?

I'll stand. Is that okay?

Please.

Good evening. I'd like to take a few minutes to recognize the men and women of the Columbia Borough Police Department. Over the last two weeks, our department has been tested in every possible way. Since July 14th, our officers have responded to a stabbing, a sexual assault, and two separate complex homicide investigations. During that same time, they've continued answering every other call for service, 494 calls, all while operating with a department that is already stretched thin. Sunday and Monday marked a major milestone when both homicide suspects were taken into custody. As Chief, I get to stand here and share that news, but the credit belongs to the officers, detectives, and non-sworn employees who spent countless hours away from their families, worked long days and nights. They followed every lead, worked side by side with our law enforcement partners, and never stopped until the job was done. No police department succeeds alone. I'd like to offer a special thank you to the detectives from the Lancaster County District Attorney's Office. Their partnership, experience, and countless hours of work were essential to bringing these cases to a successful resolution. What makes me the most proud isn't just that these cases ended with arrest. It's while these major investigations were happening, our officers never stopped serving Columbia Borough. They still answered every 911 call. They still responded when someone needed help They showed up for every victim, every family, and every resident who called them. That is what professionalism looks like. That is what commitment looks like.

And that is what our department represents.

People often measure a police warrant by its staffing numbers or its fancy cars or its specialized units or sometimes even its budget. measure this department by the character of the people who wear this badge every day they prove that they are dedicated compassionate and willing to do whatever it takes to protect the community to every member of the columbia borough police department thank you i know how hard you've worked i know the sacrifices you've made i know the emotional toll these investigations have taken and i know that you've carried them while continuing to answer every call You didn't ask for recognition. You simply came to work, put on your uniform, and did your job with professionalism, integrity, and compassion. History may remember arrests. I will remember the men and women who never gave up until the job was done. That is the character of the Columbia Borough Police Department. It is the greatest honor of my career to serve as your chief.

Thank you. Thank you, Chief. Action items. Authorization for bill payments.

So moved.

Second. I have a motion by Councilman Beyer, second by Councilman Zagler, to authorize bill payments. Any questions, concerns? All in favor say aye. Aye. New business. Consider approval of McGinnis Innovation Park phase one final invoice in the amount of $1,250,000.

$1,250. Sorry.

To Bremen Site Construction LLC. Rick was our... uh manager consultant yes site manager and uh he's completed that and wrapped it up so that's our final payment can i get a motion to approve that i'll make a motion to consider or to approve guinness innovation park phase one final invoice in the amount of 1250 brennan site construction llc second I have a motion by Councilman Ziegler, seconded by Councilman Byers to approve the final invoice in the amount of $1,250 to Berman Site Construction LLC. All in favor say aye. Aye. Consider approval of the annual contribution to the Columbia Fire Department in the amount of $111,000. I will add, this is not the full budget amount, but we thought that they needed something to get started until we have more money. So we are making this proposal.

What I was going to ask, Jared texted me and asked about that.

Yeah.

I'll make a motion to approve the annual contribution to the Columbia Fire Department in the amount of $111,000. Second.

I have a motion by Councilman Zink. I have a motion by Councilman Byers, second by Councilman Zink, to approve the annual contribution of the Columbia Fire Department in the amount of $111,000.

Will the remainder be distributed in September when we send the rest of our community contributions?

That will be when we are clear of our financial situation. As you'll see in our

What is the full amount annually?

I believe it's 300.

300 even?

No, it wasn't even.

I thought it used to be 188 and then it was brought up to three this year. So I think it is 355. I don't know.

All right, the 181. I think it was 141. 151.

I think what it was.

We have a document.

They just don't have it. It's a decision we ought to make when we fully understand our financial situation. I have a motion by Councilman Byers, seconded by Councilman Zinn, to approve the contributions Any other questions, concerns? All in favor say aye.

Aye.

budget we have the normal contribution at 111 and then we have an apparatus fund at 189.

That's fine. I just wish you had jumped up beforehand.

I just want to say on behalf of the Plymouth Fire Department we appreciate your support of the $111,000. Thank you.

that are sealed. Consider approval of the purchase of new mobile radios for the police vehicles. Total amount to $27,586.67. Is that correct? Yes, sir. How many radios is that for?

We have eight car radios and one in these stations, so nine radios.

And starting January 2027, those radios will not operate this time of year.

Right.

As a matter of fact, it's about $6,000 under the budget figure.

Yes. I believe we have $34,000 budgeted for radios. I believe we'll get some for 27, so.

Chief, does Triangle come here to make that installation for the base radio?

I'm sorry.

This triangle come here to do the installation for the base for you?

Yes, we will do the installation for the cars and the base, and that also includes a three-year warranty and GPS.

And the installation is included in the bridge?

Yes.

I have a motion by Councilor Eze.

I'll second it.

second by councilman myers to approve the purchase of new mobile radios for the freaks vehicles in the amount of twenty seven thousand five hundred eighty six dollars fifty seven cents there you go um executive summary shows it coming out of operating expense but we had this coming out of capital so is it coming out of the general fund

Technically, on paper, it should come out of capital. Yes.

Hold on a second. It's not. So why do we say technically it should come out of capital? It's not. It's held as part of it.

Okay.

So we have to actually, we should actually approve to transfer this money to capital and then pay it out of capital.

I don't think that's necessary. This is just for tracking purposes, to question key tabs of what money is spent.

I think that I am not a financial expert, but I think that really comes down to, is this a depreciable asset? Well, no, no.

I get that. I get the reason for capital. My understanding was that a capital project, you put money into, and if you want to remove money, you have to bring it out. But both ways, in and out, it's by various counties.

we would be making that motion we would be we could be making that decision at the time that we do our budget because the budget basically says where the money is coming from so it's not a specific we would there would we would have to do um a line item in the budget that would say transfer from TRANSFER FROM GENERAL FUND AND THEN ON GENERAL FUND, THAT WOULD BE A LINE THAT SAYS TRANSFER TO CAPITAL FUND. SO WE WOULDN'T HAVE TO DO A SPECIFIC TRANSACTION FOR EACH INDIVIDUAL MOVEMENT OF CASH BECAUSE IT WOULD BE IMPLIED WHEN THEY DO THE CASH.

THAT CAN GET YOU IN TROUBLE. WHY? I THOUGHT THAT'S THE WAY YOU WERE GOING. When you put that money into capital, for example, say you put $34,000 in capital.

Right.

Okay? You committed $27,000. Right. So now you've got the remainder sitting in capital. Right. And you surely could use it in general.

Right, and that's when you go to move it back out.

And you can do that. That's just another exercise. Right. You eliminate one step by when you... incur it, and move it to capital. And you can do that, correct me if I'm wrong, you can do that on paper. You move it to capital and pay it. So you don't have to do all that other stuff.

Yeah, I think that's exactly how you would handle it on the back end.

That's fine.

You need to make a motion to transfer that.

So, and this is a small amount.

Yeah.

What about a $5 million, $4 million project? And we plan on putting $2 million into it, and we plan on getting $2 million in grants. We've got to get on this move whenever we want to.

That would be, I would leave it wherever you're getting the highest interest rate for the longest time that you can. So whether that's your general fund or whether that's somewhere else.

I'm just saying, for example, radios. I don't want to take up this time. But for radios, that was budgeted in December.

Now, it probably won't get spent until August. So you just move that money over into capital as you need it, essentially. Okay. Yep.

Yeah, because basically what would happen is we budget the $34,000, we're paying $27,000, well, so we would show the $27,000 expenditure, which would create a $7,000, six and change, fund balance. So, if I can just explain, here's why they called up this.

A general fund, for example, let's say right now is $4.2 million. For that $4.2 million, we have stuff budgeted out of capital. It's not in capital. It's in general. So we're not aware of it, but we may not remember it. Or, for example, Ethan maybe or Tom who just got on council had no say in it and do not know it's coming out. That's why I'm saying we're going to budget something for capital. We should almost put that money in capital.

I think you're getting... You're going to do an extra step where you're going to go to where the borough a few years ago, the borough had plenty of money in capital and nothing in general.

But if you're doing a project, that money is spent. Now, for example, we budgeted $35,000. It's only $27,000. That means there's $8,000 in capital up there. So you can easily approach and move that $8,000 back.

Well, that's what I'm saying. Don't put it in capital. Don't put $34,000 in capital. You move $27,000 to capital, pay the bill, and you leave the $7,000 in general. I'm fine.

I get it. I think it's what God has told me before.

Well, I think...

you have to you're confused between the actual bank account versus there you go well yeah i was i was and so was jack for manager ramer when he took office and realized there's no money here and what we had tens of millions of dollars in spending on capital there's no money there either so It gives you a false sense of reality when you're looking at $4.2 million in a general fund, but you have $2.8 million in capital expenses that has to come out. And that's why I'm saying maybe if we could start physically moving out, first of all, our capital's going to be in a statement account, it's going to have a higher return. If we budget for a project, you put that money in there, and if we have to, if we put $2 million aside, say, to do the... good ridge avenue and then we decided you know what we need that two million dollars as a council we can see it and say you know what we're going to scrap that idea right now we'll have two million dollars back but right now we're sitting on a two million dollar project and we think we have two and a half million dollars in the account and we don't we have a project going on and that's the problem that the girl is into that's that's that's the problems going on right now the

by having that money sitting in capital, but they thought the borough thought, and actually it was until we had to sit down with Representative Miller, the borough thought that they couldn't move money from capital into the general. And we found out, no, that's incorrect. Now that we know you can move money From general to capital, capital to general, you can move it back and forth.

As long as it's a vote.

Right. That makes it a lot clearer and a lot easier. Right.

So this week we were in the process of transferring the funds to Fulton Bank, from Truist to Fulton. And we're following through with the plan of creating additional accounts. So there will now be a separate capital fund. there will be a separate general fund. And then the other smaller accounts, such as the police special account, will continue those. But everything that you're discussing now will be corrected, if you will, within a week or two.

Yeah, a perfect example is every year in our capital fund, it shows we have $1.7 million right now. And that's because we have a balance of 1.7 million for the market house. Since the day Heather and I got in office, we haven't seen that grant come through yet. It may be two more years until we see it, and I'll never see it. But it's still sitting in there as a positive cash flow of $1.7 million. What did they say? Wow. No, you're not going to be right here. We're making headway on it. Jack's making headway.

And I think the whole key is once you all, I should say we, found out that, yes, you can transfer money back and forth, that made a big difference.

And I'm not saying that we have to put, if in December we decide we're going to build a new public works building up there for $4 million, that doesn't mean we have to take $4 million out of general account for the dinner, right?

We may have to budget it over two or three years and put a million in this year, a million in the next year, whatever.

And then look for grants and then hopefully get that. But the way we're spending money right now, and I was blown away when I realized we didn't have two accounts. I've always heard capital, general. Yeah. Yeah. That's confusing. And I'm sorry, Holly, for wasting your time on this. You just wanted radios. I understand that. You asked for it. You wanted it. I just...

I agree. I think that there is also an aspect of going through the process of the votes, even if it is not like 100% necessary, also makes it clear where the money is and isn't going and can just help with some of that confusion as well. So yeah, I see the benefit of it.

i don't know in this exact case if it's necessary because we don't currently have the two seconds right right in the future yeah all right i agree all right thank you for your time um i have motion by councilman zinc hold on a second i'm sorry even counseling easy second by councilman buyers to prove The new mobile radios for the police vehicles for $27,586.57. Any other questions, concerns? All in favor say aye.

Aye.

Thank you.

Thank you.

Sure.

I have a question.

Yes.

I just happened to think about that. Regarding fire, Is that going to affect you guys?

So he actually approached me in the future. If we have to do something like this, maybe we can join with the fire department. Maybe save some money. Yep.

Oh, yeah. The more you order, the cheaper it's going to be. Is it too late to look at that this year?

I think so. We did just vote.

No, no, what I'm saying is you already approved for these.

Right.

But if they tack theirs on top.

They have just as many vehicles as she has.

What I'm saying is if they tack theirs on top, would we get a discount for doubling our order?

Yeah, but the problem is we're going to end up paying for those renewals.

He just got $111,000. No, he didn't.

It's on your old paper.

He'll get the check after next week because it's not in this check product.

No, I'm kidding. But they have other expenses as well. That's why.

Oh, yeah, I understand that. If we can do that in the future.

Maybe you can. Maybe you can reach out, and they may give you a larger price if you guys have the extra money right now.

I mean, when Holly puts the order in, if she was to say, hey, what kind of deal are you going to give me? I need nine. What kind of deal are you going to give me when you say 15?

Right.

That would be up to you guys. Even just to know that information for the future would be good? Yeah, absolutely. Okay.

all right staff reports comments and announcements so let's forget i don't have anything additionally this evening all right engineer ronaldo is he on vacation still no i was going to say he just hates it star weekend is over i'd like to know just say we're paying way too much of this

Fire manager's report. Just one announcement. The fireworks that were scheduled for July 4th have been rescheduled to September 26th at 8 p.m. The fireworks will be fired from the Laurel Hill Cemetery. There were no other activities planned for that evening.

What?

That evening, right? Related to the fireworks. There's a lot going on in the borough that day.

There's a lot going on. Yes, yes. It was a football game. No, sorry, Mike. um but there is something in the park that afternoon no no no but what we're saying is it's an all-day community thing and the albert witch saturday yep and the trolley is going to be running for all of them yeah it's going to be a long day hopefully hopefully anybody from anywhere be able to see them in columbia it's we picked the highest point we could to shoot them out over columbia instead of trying to have one location so that's everything thank you thank you boards commissions and committees no upcoming meetings minutes approved the shade tree commission of april 27 2026 and last uh june 25th 2026 minutes borough council comments let's start with councilman ziegler

I'd just like to echo the sentiments of the chief. First-hand information about how hard your department worked over the last two weeks, how dedicated they are, professional, and the unfortunate circumstances they had to work under but proved themselves true public servants. So thank you for all your hard work. Thank you. Just one other quick question. Are we not participating with National Night Out this year?

No, we're not this year. The whole idea was we would go for my National Night Out with the July 4th celebration and the rain kind of canceled it.

Gotcha.

Plus, it'd be a big undertaking for them right now.

That's what I kind of figured.

There's all these different events this year. We were hearing from the fire police, from the police.

I know there's a lot of things going on. I was just kind of curious if this is something that... Maybe nice.

Maybe everybody on National Night Out can stop by the police department, drop off some donuts.

There might be two people there, but...

They'll have a lot of donuts. They'll have a lot of donuts. That's what I hear. Councilman Peasy. Councilman Zane.

um last wednesday jean and i attended the lexington county birds association quarterly meeting and while there commissioner dover was in attendance and one of the things that we asked about was the county-wide reassessment um i was specifically curious about if we were going to get updates as to how many appeals there were in the borough and things like that. Because last time, you know, a quarter of the people appealed the reassessment. And what we found, it was pretty interesting what she said. And she was, all the commissioners are kind of shocked as well. Last time the reassessment was done, there were 8,000 appeals countywide. this as of last wednesday now they're still accepting the appeal applications until next friday but as of last wednesday we were the county is on track to have less than half of the number of appeals that they had before um trying to figure out why maybe it was the messaging um you know so Just thought that was interesting. And also, we can, as the municipality, can expect to get our final number the end of October, the beginning of November, because that's when anyone that appealed, that's when the letters are due to homeowners. So there's that. And, you know, we talk a lot about being a walkable community and you know we're talking about the issues with e-bikes and all of that stuff well you know i see more and more people walking downtown and one of the things that i've noticed you know because i go to the city a lot and other municipalities with traffic lights You know, our traffic lights downtown, they don't automatically come up with the walk sign unless someone pushes the button. They have to physically push the button. Well, that's not the way it is other places. They always come on. So I would like to know, in the effort of making our community more walker-friendly and more walkable, is it possible for us to get our street lights changed so that that the walking man comes up every time the light turns green because i oftentimes will see people standing waiting to walk but then the walk symbol doesn't come up and they don't know if they're allowed to walk or not um and can i lay down walking person yeah Yeah, it's sort of, you know, racist and sexist, the white walking man. The white man walking. Yeah, they go on their bumpies, the stick on bumpies. But, I mean, I think that would go a long way. I know there's a lot of, you know, talk about making things safer for pedestrians. And, I mean, it's no secret here in town, we have a huge issue with motorists not understanding that if there is a pedestrian in the crosswalk, the pedestrian has the right of way. And there's a lot of vehicles that will just take off and not respect the fact that, because they're conditioned to say, oh, well, they don't have the walk symbol, so they shouldn't be in the crosswalk. But that's absolutely not the case. I mean, because they should have the walk symbol if they're walking in with the traffic. So I would... like to see if we can get that changed. I know it seems like a small change, but we got a month till school starts and we want our kids to be safe. So yeah, I would like to see that happen.

Anything else?

I think that's it.

Thank you, Councilman Beck. Councilman Barnes.

Yeah, just two things echoing what Tom said as far as the homicide investigations. I saw a sentiment online that I really appreciated that was going around of people saying, let the police do their job. They're not going to tell you everything immediately. um and i you know i really appreciate people saying that because that is really important just because you know they're not just because we're the public is not getting every single piece of information doesn't mean nothing's happening so I just want to agree with that sentiment. And then the other thing is actually just tonight the chat on the live stream asked, does anybody on council look at these? I do look at them. Occasionally I try to a few times throughout the meeting. So if you are leaving comments on the live stream, I do check it a few times throughout the meeting. If you have specific questions or something like that, you know, that's a totally valid way to communicate. So that's all I have.

I would be careful saying that it's a valid way to communicate because that implies that they're going to get a response. Sure. Yes, it's and that's not the case.

Yeah, it's not it's not going it's not the same as coming in person and speaking at the podium. But it is. We are seeing the things that come through here. And I've also seen staff reading the comments and monitor moderating them as well in the past. So.

All right. So my comment goes in line with Heather's. It kind of goes against the matter. The other week, I suggested to the borough manager, and he kind of looked at me like I was crazy. But this whole e-bike, the whole e-ride thing, it's only going to get worse. It's not going to get better. It's cheap transportation. And at any age, a kid to an adult can be driving. We want to be a walk-around community. Why not try to embrace it? Instead of punishing, teach, train, and embrace it. And make it a, you know, maybe we make a lane for transportation. You know, that kind of transportation, whatever, or bicycle transportation. But, and obviously every street can't have it. But instead of just coming up here and harping all the time that they're bad, they're bad, they got to be punished or whatever. Why not embrace it? Because it's something that's here and it's not going away.

That's the whole point of it, Eric. And that's why someone made a comment, well, scooters aren't allowed on the street anyhow. Well, try to stop it. Right. Someone's going to be trying to stop fireworks. Try to stop it. It's so ingrained. that you try to make it safe. You don't take them away. You try to make it safe. And that's the whole intent is to ease into this and try to make it all work because it's not gonna go away. But let's make it safe. And that's why we decided we're gonna work on the lights first. The biggest bang for the buck is the lights at nighttime. That's the start. And then we'll go the other way. odd thing about it i didn't think you could put lights on a scooter the ordinance it's a pending ordinance in strasbourg they put they have that ordinance that scooters are allowed on the street in strasbourg but they have to have lights front and back and i i said to the mayor i said you can't put lights on you say yes you can the problem is the amish use the big wheel the bikes and the scooters to

get to our fire company because most of them run the fire calls so they're they're using the scooters he said so we had to leave them on the street uh i know at the last bike rodeo uh police department and parker marquette uh they were giving out both red rear and white front lights so i mean they are they are available with the road i know they're still i saw one this week know they're still available because they're all my kitchen well remember that when we had the next fight right right so yeah i just i think we ought to embrace instead of just trying to shut it yeah you're gonna you're gonna have a battle you can't win yeah if you create if you create an ordinance that you expect the police to stop everybody for something it's just not gonna work

Mr. President, before you adjourn, let me say, if you look at your borough news, there's an article on economic development. Two wonderful pictures that the mayor took of bikes and kinkos and kayaks going down Logan Street. It's a good article. So we hit the borough news.

Sorry, I forgot I wanted to say something about that. I saw it last week.

We're outside of citizen comments, but Gina, since you're my favorite aunt, I'll let you claim some of my... Oh my God, favoritism.

Where are they exactly allowed to be?

Nowhere. What's that, the bikes?

I mean, I see them flying on sidewalks. But I mean, where can they... On the road, the same as a vehicle. And that's e-bike, scooters...

i just didn't know exactly where they were on that we need to just make them

so safe we need we need now and i get what eric's saying i think that's perfect i think you all should park out of cloud fires at the high school kids were on the street i just didn't know where they were absolutely allowed as opposed what about bicycles they're not allowed on the sidewalk they have to be out in the street yeah you guys can say little kids ride bikes on the sidewalk yeah not supposed to do that

No, we agree.

I think that's been one of those that, I mean, it's always in the statute that all bicycles are supposed to be in the street, but, you know.

And that's my concern.

We've always allowed the little kids on the sidewalk.

There's one thing from a parent walking with a four-year-old and a bike and stuff, and then there's another thing with a 12- to 15-year-old who's on the sidewalk, on the street,

the sidewalk on the street they come down from the school with blinds too and there's kids the kids are walking down and they're weaving in and out of them you know or they're out in the middle of the street okay i just wanted to know exactly where they were allowed to thank you thank you the state is addressing all this

is there may be some rage this is not the time for public comments scott i don't think you're his favorite i'm your favorite resident no so that that that's where we differ you have you have one minute two o'clock well i just wanted to commend you uh on the uh the budget which category to put the things in. I think I agree with you, Eric. I think that would give a truer reading. It might be simpler the other way, but it would be a truer reading to see how much money is accessible instead of saying, well, we have so much here, but so much of that is spoken for. So I actually agree with you, Eric. So

I thought you were giving accommodations for the arrest.

No. Kudos to her and her department. I mean, absolutely. Absolutely. That's an awesome thing.

And as counsel, we were kept up to date.

Obviously, some of the stuff's private, but we appreciate everything that Holly and her team has done. I knew you were going to blow.

Seven o'clock. I have a motion for adjournment. Oh, wait a second. Announcement of the next meeting is 7 p.m. on Thursday, August 6, 2026. Council will hold a workshop meeting. I have a motion for adjournment.

Second.

I have a motion by Councilman Zink, second by Councilman Byers to adjourn this meeting. All in favor say aye.

Aye.

Aye.

Thank you.

Why is it on Thursday instead of Tuesday?