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VOLUME 15, NUMBER 7
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Penn Forest OKs budget, and new STR rules by Seth Isenberg
At left, Cindy Sames helps 10 year old Gabriel Hernandez glue his snowglobe. Above, Lisa Franko and 9 year old Ruby Franko fill out cards for veterans.
Let it snow, says Penn-Kidder Library by Lori R. Cooper Penn-Kidder Library in Albrightsville had a snow globe making on December 21. Assistant librarian Laura Uliana came up with the idea for children. Prior to making snow globes, the children filled out Christmas cards for veterans at Valor House. They drew pictures inside their cards and included their own greetings. Eight year old Sebastian Hernandez drew pictures and wrote “Thank you for what you did” inside his card. The library had Christmas cards available for patrons to fill out as well. Renea Watson, who hadn’t visited the library since it moved over a year
ago, brought her 9-year-old daughter, Gianna, who was
Renea and 9 year old Gianna Watson.
happy to fill out a card “to wish the veterans a Merry Christmas.” She was really excited to make her own snow globe and loves arts and crafts. With the help of library staff the children glued their choice of trucks, Santas and Christmas trees inside of the See SNOWGLOBES, page 3
The 2023 Penn Forest Township general fund budget adopted on December 5 balances $2,207,183 in revenue with expenses. The sanitation budget has $533,700 in estimated revenue, and $489,800 in expenses. The liquid fuels (roads) budget is $272,319 in revenue and expenditures. Supervisors voted to approve these unanimously. Former supervisor Judy Knappenberger called in to the meeting to object to the budget lowering the township donation to the Lehighton Ambulance to $15,000, from $50,000. There was discussion, but no action taken. Supervisors were unanimous in approving an amended ordinance to regulate Short-Term Rentals, setting in place a rule that counts each person over the age of 2 years old, and also creating a violation ticket for the new code enforcement officer to use. Supervisors later in the meeting, explained to a citizen’s question that the Code Enforcement officer ha started to inspect all of the STRs, at a rate of about 10 each week. Every STR in the township will be inspected. Regarding having the code enforcement officer wor
on weekends, supervisor Christian Bartulovich noted that there was only one weekend complaint about STRs in the past three weeks. Pat Dusablon pointed out that the problem with STRs is “the party houses.” Dusablon, who lives in Towamensing Trails (TT), engaged in a discussion about the TT Association’s security responding to an STR issue. He was told that “an official security offi report would be valuable” to provide to the township. A discussion of the steps needed to be taken for the township to have police coverage had supervisor Bartulovich explaining that the state policing study done for the township suggested coverage would require seven officers, and as man as four vehicles. Supervisors’ chairman Roger Meckes said that calls will be made to the neighboring townships with existing police to see what interest they have in cooperation with Penn Forest. Sharing a department would be the least costly way to proceed. Supervisor Pat Holland said he is against having the police. He was the sole NO vote when supervisors were asked to add the topic to the agenda. Citizen Jeffrey Marmur will continue to lead See PENN FOREST, page 2