Freeland borough council meeting on Zoom this week

Standard-Speaker (Hazleton, PA)

Dec. 16--The public will have to attend this week's Freeland Borough Council meeting on the internet.

At the council work session Thursday night, borough officials discussed Gov. Tom Wolf's latest COVID-19 order handed down last week that limits indoor gatherings to 10 people.

"It goes into effect Saturday at midnight," Wilson Malloy, the borough's Emergency Management coordinator, said last week "It is a temporary order until Jan. 4. All school extracurricular activities are canceled. The general assembly of people is limited to 10 people. That is going to limit council."

While council members, Mayor John Budda and Borough Secretary Lee Ann Gera can attend the meeting in person at the borough building, Solicitor Joe Baranko can continue to attend via Zoom -- as he and members of the public did for Thursday's work session.

At next week's meeting, council will consider the final 2021 budget, which includes the first property tax increase in the borough in three years.

Baranko told council he has publicly advertised the budget and the accompanying tax ordinance, and the Request For Proposals for the Tax Anticipation Loan the borough will take out to cover expenses in early 2021 until tax revenue begins to roll in.

Councilman Matt Krone said the 1-mill property tax increase will raise taxes 23.8%, or from $308 to $378 on the average Freeland home in 2021.

The spending plan calls for money to hire more police officers, up to two full-time and some part-time officers. The $125,000 line item in the budget for police could be any configuration of both full- and part-time officers.

One significant change will be a new health care plan that will require borough employees to pay a $500 or $1,000 annual deductible. In the previous plan, from the same insurance carrier, Krone said there was no deductible. The health care plan is less expensive than the 2020 plan, Krone said.

So the current 4.2 mills -- 3.7 for general purposes and 0.5 for the borough ambulance -- would go up to 5.2 mills.

Garbage solution?

Krone said the garbage hauler who picks up trash and recyclables in Freeland has proposed moving both collections to one day to avoid problems.

Council members have been discussing various collection problems since different parts of town are collected on different days, and recyclables are also collected at a different time.

"If it won't cost us any more money, and if it solves the problem, why not?" asked Councilman Joe Murmello.

"It's just a matter of the people getting used to it," Krone said. "If it doesn't work out, we could always go back to the way it is now."

No new day was set until borough officials discuss the matter further with the hauler. Krone said any changes will be publicly announced.

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