Salary Disputes, Fire Chief Rules and Bond Savings

Last night's council meeting covered a lot of territory in two hours.

It began with Council President Dan Weand refuting comments and articles by school board member Tom Hylton last month about what Hylton said is a 30 percent increase in payroll costs to taxpayers in the last four years.

Here's the full video of Weand's comments:



That was followed by a vote on bond re-financing of water and sewer bonds that could save as much as $800,000, which would be used to keep rates down.

Vice President Sheryl Miller said towns far outside Pottstown and the surrounding Pottsgroves are using the borough kennel to store found animals and that from now on, they will have to pay $500 annually for the privilege.

There was extensive discussion of proposed changes to the fire ordinance, mostly in outlining the policies and elements that define the fire chief's position in anticipation of the pending retirement of current chief Richard Lengel.

Councilman Dennis Arms insisted that the new chief must be required to live in the borough, but few other council members hopped on that bandwagon.

Also under discussion was proposed changes to the Human Relations Commission.

Before that happened, though, Mayor Sharon Thomas used her mayor's report to- address some of those issues.

Here is video of her report:



Council reviewed changes being proposed to the zoning ordinance for the rules governing convenience stores, and again Arms spoke up and said the borough has too many.

Kristin Sirbeck, owner of Beverly's Pastries, also spoke on that issue during the public comment portion. She is the second speaker in the video posted below:


Find below the Tweets and videos from the meeting.

Look for a few, more detailed stories about selected topics from the meeting in coming editions of The Mercury.