City Council - Regular Meeting

Hello. Hello.

Hello, Frank. Hello. Okay, thank you. We still need Frank.

I may not make it on time though.

Mr. Brown. Here. Ms. Sando-Dennis. Here. Mr. Pinnabone.

Here.

Mrs. Rose. Here. Mr. Graziano.

Here.

Mrs. Hartrock-Bittinger. Here. Mayor Panto.

Is there any discussion on the lease agreement with the city of Eastman and the housing authority?

Karen.

Yes.

I JUST WANT TO MAKE A MOTION TO REMOVE CDBG FROM THE AGENDA. IT WAS TOO LATE TO DO IT.

OKAY. THAT WOULD BE THE SECOND ONE, B?

YES. OKAY.

IT'S ALREADY DONE. WE REMOVED IT EARLIER.

EXCUSE ME, ONE SECOND. MAYOR, CAN WE HAVE THE BOARD OF HEALTH GO FIRST?

YEAH.

PLEASE.

YEAH, WE CAN HAVE THE BOARD OF HEALTH GO FIRST.

JUST REMEMBER THAT.

Newest guy gets out early. What's with that? He's a newbie.

He's a probie. Yeah, we're doing opposite order today. I won't. I won't. So after initial feedback, I was asked to bring a proposal together to do a tiered licensing system. I put one out in front. The reasoning behind it is just the inspections out in the field. So there are essentially two different inspections. One would be considered a non-potentially hazardous, which I provided some deeper explanation on it, and then the standard inspection that's going on currently. So it would bring us to a two-tier system.

What else did you want to bring up on health care?

I think that was it. Yeah, that was the only thing.

I just wanted to thank you for taking a look at this and also for going out to speak with Andy as well. I know she really appreciated that.

Yeah, absolutely. I think going out and just kind of getting a better source of what was going on helped. Did we have any questions? Did you want me to explain anything?

Would you mind telling the board what you discovered with regards to researching handicapped spots?

Oh, yeah, absolutely. So I know handicaps were a discussion last time as well. In terms of handicaps and what we're providing to the city, we are one of the most accommodating cities in terms of third class when it comes to providing the residents handicaps. We're really the only ones besides Bethlehem that are doing exclusively reserved handicaps. So every other city is just doing a general handicap on the block that the citizens are, for lack of better term, competing for. Ours are exclusive where that permit number is going directly to that applicant.

That just changed. That changed because it wasn't that way originally.

That changed well, well before me.

I saw the permit numbers are starting to be put on the signs. When did that start, Dave? I think it's been a while. It's been several years. I mean, no doubt. But when we first started to handicap spots in neighborhoods, it was you needed a handicap license plate to be there or a placard.

Yeah. So I'm not aware when the ordinance was changed to the current method where it's permit number only, but it's been quite a while.

Yeah, it's been a while.

So yeah, we discussed that the annual review last time. I'm going through annually, sending notifications. I'm also door knocking when I'm out there. I try to prevent a third one coming on the street so you folks don't have to, so city council doesn't have to vote on it. Because we want to make sure they're in usage. I appreciate that. Yeah, absolutely.

Someone from one of the neighborhoods asked me recently if someone has a driveway or garage, is that taken into consideration?

That is absolutely taken into consideration. Um, so typically, and I don't want to say 100% of the time because there are some life and safety kind of accommodations we make. Um, but if I put a percentage on it, which I don't want to do, it's a very high percentage. We do not approve those like those don't go through.

Gotcha. Thank you.

But just so we're clear and transparent, when you say that you don't want a third to have to go before council, you're just simply saying you want to make sure that the two that are already Established on one block are in use, correct?

Correct.

So yeah, because I mean we I think I think we all can agree that if somebody's handicapped and they need access to their Close proximity to their front yard or whatever they they can have it Absolutely.

So when I say that I mean the city is doing its due diligence and making sure those spots are still active and that applicant still lives there and still uses it and We discussed in detail kind of that process the last time. They go under a yearly review. During that yearly review, typically a phone call or door knocking, if I'm out in that area, it occurs. And then if I don't get lucky, they don't pick up, they don't call me back, I send an official notification through OpenGov in their email and a hard copy for them to respond to me in a reasonable amount of time. When I say we try to prevent a third, I just mean it in sense of we want to make sure the two are active that are already on that street.

Yeah, just wanted to confirm that.

I just wanted to be clear on it.

At any time, do you require additional medical documentation, like a year or a multi-year point?

So that's not written in the ordinance that they have to provide me more medical documentation. a lot of the disabilities are long-term. So I don't require it, no, just to be clear.

I think the problem is for legitimately handicapped people, we want to do what's best, but we have a lot of people out there whose family doctor will give them a note to get a placard, and then they can walk.

Yeah, and during some of the... medical paperwork I receive, they are pretty blank, right? Sometimes doctors will just write, patient has difficulty walking, but with no explanation, no additional information for the board to help make a decision. So sometimes those do get sent back and I say, hey, please have your doctor fill this out correctly. So there are steps in there that we're trying to make sure the ones that are being granted are sufficient.

OK, that's good. Thank you. Any other discussions, questions before he leaves? You can go.

Oh, sorry.

John Kingsley's going to go last. Speaking of Kingsley, tomorrow night we have a couple of public hearings. One is for a Rios liquor transfer and one is for the CDBG allocation. Any questions on the Rock Church transfer?

Mayor, you had started out with the lease agreement with the housing authority. Yeah. If there aren't any questions, then good questions.

How many spaces is that? Nine. 16. 16, yeah. They put a map in the packet.

Yeah, I saw that. I count them. And there's one handicap spot in there?

I don't know if there's a handicap spot, but there is one EV. Okay. But that's not for public use.

So that's the X one is the EV spot.

I'm not sure. I'm going to have to double check that.

We'll have signage for that as well.

It'll be posted on our website, social media site, and then it'll be on the app. If the app blocks out like you can't park there, it'll be noted on the app. I do have an update. This is related to parking. with regards to the St. John's lot, but I'd rather talk about it in an executive session. So I'm going to talk to you.

Did the county do anything yet?

Mayor, that's why I want to talk in the executive session.

Oh, no, I'm just saying, did the county do anything yet? Comment. No comment. I'll tell you afterwards.

I just had the phone call with the county like 30 minutes ago. Okay. Literally. Oh, no, 45 minutes ago, because 30 minutes ago I was with Sue. Okay.

Louis, I have a question about the parking, the Housing Authority parking.

Yes.

So this is after hours? Yes. OK. So Harlan House, did they ever have access to that parking lot after hours?

Not that I know of. But I've only been on the board since the beginning of this year, I believe.

OK. Because I know that when I spoke to Harlan House residents back in the fall, they were complaining about the lack of parking. They only have that one area off Cory Street where the awning is.

I think I'm aware of that situation. I think there are underutilized blocks in the city. But I think that should come out. Those kinds of issues should come out with the parking study because it's going to be brought up. For example, the utilized block is 4th Street. Specifically like it's just underutilized with regards to parking so It seems like from just our knowledge from working here that There could be open to additional on street parking passes. All right, but you know I'd rather go through the consultant to talk about how what kind of methods what kind of programs we can put in place to maybe even on a block by block type of situation. Other cities have it block by block. They don't aggregate all the blocks as one, if that makes sense. We tend to do that. But that's something that I can bring up with the consultant. Since we're talking about parking and any changes in policy, we wanna first throw at potentially the consultant. That was my impression, the feedback. That's the impression that I'm running with with regards to recommending any other parking changes.

Thank you.

Louis, how's the parking usage across the street there on the Social Security lot?

I don't have it off the top of my head, but I mean, we're always cutting them a check on a monthly basis.

Okay, it just seems like every time I go by there, there's hardly any cars.

It depends.

I'm not going by there every day.

It's up and down, but we are cutting them like a check on a monthly basis. Definitely during festival seasons, it spikes. I mean, last year, to give you an indication, last year we paid them $8,000.

During the festival season?

Yeah, for parking, just in general. So the city made $8,000. So that's...

It wasn't even a full year.

It wasn't even a full year. So there's utilization, but it definitely goes up and down. And either way, I mean, it's not necessarily costing us... Yeah, I mean, the only thing would be snow removal, correct? Yeah, snow removal and then our PEOs, for what it's worth, taking 10 minutes and going through that lot on intervals. But it's like... within their normal working jurisdiction.

Gotcha. Is there any questions on the Rock Church transfer property? We should probably discuss that with the solicitors tomorrow. I don't think there's anything to... Where's the status update?

On the Rock Church transfer?

Yeah, there's supposed to be an agreement Drafted be about what they're gonna do with the Timothy house Okay, we want the Timothy house renovated and restored The there any questions on the execution of the agreement with Sir Foss Linden development LLC that that is on the agenda for approval deep deep can discuss it Give us a high-level Review of it.

I mean the the contract the contracts on the agenda

The contract is on the agenda. I saw that. But the... Discussion about how we're going to approve the Timothy House. That has not been resolved yet.

It's in the agreement. It is? Yeah, that's why Attorney Vargo wanted a short executive session tomorrow just to inform counsel. Basically, it's the resolution of a court order and legal settlement. We have the subdivision all worked out. We met and signed the milers with the Rock Church maybe a week and a half ago. Attorney Lawser was there and their attorney was there and then they also signed the agreement which is on the agenda and the resolution of the agreement was basically that as long as the Rock Church meets all of the city standards, they go through HDC, they get all their approvals, You know, it was, you know, Attorney Vargo and laws are recommended that that should be enough to satisfy the city if they meet all of our requirements rather than getting us involved in telling them what they can and can't do. Good point. HEC will do that.

Okay. Okay. Is there any questions or discussion about the resolution or the Searfrost Linden next door? The agreement that's in the packet. Okay, resolution of the execution of the agreement with Comcast. She was here last week, two weeks ago, and she talked about that. Is there any questions on that?

I have one question, and I may have missed it when they were here last time. The boxes that they're installing, what are the exact specifications, sizes of those? Because it's kind of hard to see... in the pictures that are on there. Some of them look small. Some of them don't.

I think they're 22 inches wide, like 16 inches deep, and 36 high.

OK. So we went back to wide on the side. That'll be the way at 22.

Yeah. OK. Yeah. It's the height that's actually sort of what will catch your eye.

Right.

They were really pretty cooperative with us. We went back and forth three or four times. We rejected almost half of them at first. The problem is, in order for them to get the power, they have to be near a pole with a transformer. And so even when they supplied them, I had the staff go out and I said, just make sure that they're doing their due diligence and finding where they should. And They did pretty well comb the neighborhoods, finding the places they should go. And then, you know, obviously there's a lot of houses that have a pole with a transformer right in front of the house. We rejected those outright. They are mostly in really inconspicuous places.

Yeah, I have no problem with the spots on there. They look pretty good. I was just worried a little bit about the size, especially on the sidewalk.

It's like a tradeoff. It's like, you know, they have to have it, but you want to offer the service. So I think we did the best we could vetting them. Good.

Thank you.

David, while you're up there speaking, we want to speak about the aquatics contracts that are on your agenda that we're using any science at Ohio.

It's our only pool they can use, so that's the one. They're going to do it in the morning too, right, again? That's the one. Yeah, they don't interfere with the public. So, you know, they've been a longtime partner, and they're very considerate. They clean up after themselves. It's a good relationship.

And they pay us for the usage, which helps offset the cost of the pool.

And I'll just update everyone. We are slowly working along through the pool consulting process. So they've been out. They've done their core sampling for the pool tanks. They're analyzing those. And then I would expect them, what is it? I'm thinking sometime in July, they're going to begin discussing with us what the future looks like how we do public outreach what other plans might look like but they it is slowly working behind the scenes so i'll keep everyone updated as we as we move along in the evaluation process is there any discussion about the agreement between the city and this the county of northampton for cdbg allocations oh it was taking off

But the agreement also was taken off?

No, it was just taken off for tonight's discussion because the allocations were discussed when we had the meeting up on College Hill. Talking to Mr. Pinnabone, any item that was discussed in a committee meeting prior to Would not be discussed again in a committee meeting So we will not put that on the agenda unless a council member wants to discuss it So that's why he motioned to pull that off the agenda All right.

What about the salient wage resolution amendment to give 15?

$1,500 to an assistant city clerk and and that's that's to be pulled down as we need right now That is an annual site.

That's an annual stipend. That's automatically given to the person who who becomes the backup clerk. So the way this works is that any salary or stipend is put on the salary and wage resolution. So that was not on the salary and wage resolution, so we put it back on. based on our discussion that we had in one of our meetings. So we put it back on. So once that's approved tomorrow, we'll be able to then post for interviews internally to get a backup. This is going to be an internal position.

Yeah. OK, we'll move on to the inter-municipal transfer, John.

Tomorrow, effectively what is happening is Rios is bringing in their existing liquor license from their former location in Nazareth and having it assigned to their location in the city. They were currently operating under the owner of the property's liquor license, so they'll now be operating under the one they actually hold. SO THE REPRESENTATIVE OF RIOS WILL BE HERE ALONG WITH THEIR ATTORNEY TO PARTICIPATE IN THE PUBLIC HEARING, AND ANY QUESTIONS YOU MAY HAVE WILL BE ANSWERED IN DETAIL AT THAT TIME.

HOW ARE THEY DOING? THEY LOOK BUSY.

THEY'RE DOING WELL. EDSON WAS ACTUALLY PART OF A TECHNICAL ASSISTANCE PANEL THAT WE HAD WITH SBDC LAST WEEK, WHICH IS ACTUALLY REALLY GOOD. IT WAS HELD AT THE QUADRON. Really seems very excited about being part of the city, and I think he's just a wonderful addition. I've known Edson for a few years. I think most people know that my family lives in Upper Nazareth Township, so we were kind of part of the Nazareth community, and I know them pretty well, and they're great people. Fantastic operation. Good people, yeah.

Their kitchen's beautiful.

Their kitchen's beautiful.

I look at the kitchen. I want to see where the food's coming from. Anytime you want to get in there. Okay, thank you. Anybody have anything else to discuss? I don't have anything.

Oh, I'm sorry, Mayor. Just briefly, I have been talking with Ken about the memorial, the opening for the Memorial Cemetery and there's a woman who used to be at Albright College in Reading who annotated a book and wrote a chapter in the book about African American burial sites and I thought since she's in Reading it would be fantastic to maybe have her come and maybe do a a guest speakership with Easton Cemetery and the Segal. So we've taken preliminary steps. Unfortunately, she's not in Reading anymore. Now she's in Baltimore, Goucher College. But nevertheless, we thought she would be an interesting addition to opening ceremonies. Now, Ken told me that he wants this in two weeks.

It's going to be pretty quick. It will be in two weeks. It will be live in time, right, Dave? Be in July sometime.

July sometime, yeah. Or be in two weeks. Nobody wants to push it to September, huh?

No, the committee doesn't. Yeah.

I mean, so, you know, we can talk offline, but, you know, to the extent maybe we can... She may be available and she may be able to come, but if not, then maybe we could just have her come anyway, like as a kind of a, you know, a speaker who... can speak to the issue of African-American burials.

I think that would be great if we could get a hold of her. We had a meeting about that today. We talked about it at a staff meeting, but we had a meeting. My staff had a meeting about it today.

Well, maybe if we can push it to the very end of July, that'll just give us a little more time to get the word out. Well, we need time.

And they need time to finish it, but we need time. But it's almost done. It's catchy now.

The grass is really catchy nicely.

First week of August, Abba.

Yes.

Give us a little time to kind of get her here and pull the money together and get the word out.

Well, we might give her a call and see what her availability is.

Yeah. I've reached out. She's interested. She kind of was curious about our timeline, and I didn't really know. I said, I'm hoping for the fall. Not today. I learned it's in two weeks. So, yeah, we don't know yet.

Nope, not all. Less than four.

Okay. Well, you know, she's only in Baltimore, so I think it's possible.

Yeah.

Yeah.

Ken, I'll give you a call. Frank will give you a call.

Okay. Her name is Cammie Fletcher. She's a professor.

That book is really good, I'm telling you.

Yeah, really interesting book, yeah.

Anyone else have anything? Okay. Tomorrow night we'll have an executive session probably at 6 o'clock. We'll delay the start of the meeting a little later, but we'll have it at 6 o'clock.

Okay.

Unless everybody gets here earlier. Lewis drives fast.

No, I'm not. Unfortunately, I'm not going to go because I don't want to drive.

Yeah, you don't want to go. I don't blame you. I don't blame you. No, I'm going to be here.

I'll talk if I don't make it. There's no one in here except city employees, so you want to give an update on water authority? No, this is recorded. Oh, it's recorded. Yes. We'll do this tomorrow night. It's only going to take two minutes, not even.

Yeah, there's several items I want to talk about. I want to talk about a personal item, two legal issues, and the water authority. I'll give four items. And what time is that, Louis? Well, the mayor said 6 o'clock whenever you guys get back.

I'm not getting back.

I think we'll get back before 6 o'clock.

I'll talk offline with you then if I don't make it back on time.

Okay. I don't think you and Julie should come early. Come at 6 o'clock because there's no sense in coming at 5.30.

Okay.

I know we'll be back by then.

Maybe we should go. Maybe, yeah.

You guys got to sign up.

I don't think it's a big deal. We're taking attendance. I don't know if you knew that. If you need the information, I can get it to you.

Are we adjourned?

Yeah we're adjourned.