I barely recognize him.
Evening. >> Evening everyone. Like to call the April
28th Litzboro Council meeting to order. I'll turn it over to the mayor regarding
the invocation for this evening.
Okay.
Okay, the next thing on our agenda is the approval of the March 31st meetings.
Has everyone had a chance to review those? And do we have a motion on those?
» Move to approve. >> Motion. Do we have a second?
» Second. All in >> favor? I
» I >> next like to make an announcement that
we had an executive session this evening regarding personnel that began at 6:15
and ran until 5:07. Oh,
next we're going to move on to presentations. We have community solar
advocacy. I'm going to turn that over to member Gatis.
» Thank you. Um, I want to invite Don Gallagher and Elizabeth Hoffman to come
up the to the microphone if you would. Um, Don is a retired teacher who's lived
in neighboring Warwick Township for 23 years. Uh, longtime volunteer in
watershed and environmental groups. Thank you for your stewardship. And
Elizabeth Hoffman who moved to Lancaster City in 2019 from Maryland where you
served in the legislature. I believe that.
» No, I worked for >> you worked for a state delegate. There
you go. Thank you for uh for clarifying that. You worked at newspapers for about
35 years and for a state delegate um for five years, volunteering with Third Act
for about three years. Um founded the Lancaster County Group and Don and uh
Elizabeth are both local volunteers with the Elders Climate Action Group, Third
Act. and they're here to do a presentation on a community solar bill
that has been through the house and is sitting in Senate committee now. It's in
the Senate Consumer Protection and Professional Lensure Committee, I
believe. >> And you will have an ask for us at the
end of your presentation, I believe. I'll turn it over to you,
» Mayor George, and members of the Burough Council. Thank you for welcoming us this
evening. In my reading of HR 504, which is the
Community Energy Act, the bill authorizes the
state's public utilities commission to make the rules and then municipal
officials will be able to decide if these projects will benefit their
citizens and businesses. Right now, you don't have the municipal authority to
consider community energy projects. The House has approved the legislation as
Miss Gatis has mentioned, but the Senate hasn't yet. It's only been referred to
committee. Those of us in third act stress the
solar aspects of the bill, but it also includes language that promotes energy
generated by gas from farmers min manure digesttors and also the bio gas from
wastewater plants and from composting facilities.
Um, when you get a chance to read through the 18 pages of the bill, uh, I'
I'd ask you to concentrate on the findings and declarations that are the,
um, the reasoning and the justification for them in the legislature and also the
definitions are very important as well. There are also protections for consumers
in the bill and for workers. And um we'd be happy to do any further research that
you might need or answer on any questions that you or your your
residents have. And I'll turn it over to Elizabeth.
» Thanks very much for letting us talk about this. Um I will say a few numbers
keep sticking in my head. 1% that's how much of its energy
Pennsylvania gets from solar. 49th that's where Pennsylvania ranks
among states in the growth of renewable energy.
60% that's how much of Pennsylvania's energy comes from fossil gas leaving us
vulnerable to price hikes like that we're seeing now but also blackouts.
8.7%. That's the increase in uh residential
rates that UTI has asked the PUC to approve. And that's on top of an 8.9%
increase in revenue that the PUC approved last fall. And I testified
against both those increases because uh like you, my income is not going up 9% a
year. And that all brings me to community
solar. In uh 2019, as you said, I moved to Pennsylvania from Maryland where I
had subscribed to a community solar program. And one of the first things I
did after moving here was to look for a similar program. And I was really
mystified to learn that Pennsylvania doesn't allow community solar. It's
available up and down the East Coast and all the surrounding states like New
York, New Jersey, Maryland, Virginia. Um I actually have a map here
with it's more than 25 it's 25 states have it but the other states um a lot of
other pilot programs and things and there's
only a handful of states including Pennsylvania that have nothing.
So we are really missing out. And so all of this is why I'm working to
get community solar here. So, what's so great about community solar? A lot of
people cannot install solar panels on their house. Their house is too shady.
They are renters. Their roof would need to be replaced to put up the panels or
it just doesn't make financial sense. Community solar makes solar available to
anyone who subscribes to the program. And so a farmer or business, even a
local government or nonprofit, installs the panels and then the residents
subscribe at a guaranteed savings which is set by the PUC. And these panels can
be on brownfields like there's a a site in Pittsburgh that would like to do this
uh landfills, parking lots, warehouses, and other big roofs. and also on farms
on land that maybe isn't uh as usable or I know some a farmer in Erie who wants
to have animals grazing under the panels. You know, with our summers
getting hotter, shade can be a really valuable commodity for a farmer.
Um,
community solar is also quicker to install. It usually takes about 12 to 18
months whereas a gas power plant would take at
least 5 years and of course nuclear power plants take uh decades to put in
and we just don't have that kind of time. So energy from these solar
projects would reduce stress on the grid thereby lowering prices for everyone
including people who are not subscribing.
They don't need expensive infrastructure upgrades because they're close to where
the energy is used. And of course, while we're getting that solar energy, we
would not be getting the air pollution that makes our air unhealthy. I'm sure
you've heard that Lancaster County keeps getting an F in air quality.
And so that's where you come in. Um, we think that if local
municipalities pass resolutions saying this is something that could help their
constituents, then the Senate might be more inclined to pass it. And so far, we
have 14 municipalities. um Alageney County, Pittsburgh,
Sharpsburg, Carlilele, Lanster Township, Lanster City, City of Philadelphia,
Erie, Westview, Lower Marian Township, Mount Lebanon, Bradock, Forest Hills,
and Aleppo. And I really hope that lit can be number 15. I think community
solar would give Pennsylvania another energy choice and lower energy
prices. It's among the fastest and least expensive ways to get more electrons on
the grid. >> Thank you, Elizabeth.
» Thank you all for welcoming us. We'd be happy to answer any questions or do more
research for you. Um, I guess my first question is, are
you aware did you say there are no such facilities in Pennsylvania currently?
» However, you participated in a community solar facility or program in Maryland.
» What kind of a um system did they have? Do you know
that? >> I really
» You don't know. Okay. the people who were putting it up. I
worked with a group there that was promoting solar also and so um we were
helping advertise that you showing that people could subscribe to it but I don't
know the details about it and it was actually pretty invisible you know you
still get the regular bill discount shows up on the bill I just didn't have
to think about it you know now every have to go look around for a supplier I
try to get all renewable I know the one this year is some company in Ohio last
year access really not help. >> Oh, I'm sorry.
» Yeah, I was just saying that now, you know, we have to go look for a
subscriber unless you use the default rate and this would just give people
another choice. >> That's great. That's that was going to
be my follow-up question was the difference between shopping for electric
and choosing one of the um renewable you know a
renewable mix whether you choose 100% or so forth how this might vary but it
» right and I always look for the 100% I can always find one less than the
default but I have to go looking for another one every year in Maryland I
just subscribe to this thing and I didn't think about it Yeah,
» the best example online that you that you'll find is Howard County, Maryland.
They have a county program that's beginning to offer this to folks and I
think >> yeah, it's it's the county government
that's doing. >> Okay.
» Does anyone else on council have any questions
for the presenters? >> I I do. Just um just want to get some
clarification since I've really never heard of this before. Um what what's the
incentive for a farm? Let's say this is passed. What would the incentive be for
like a farmer or a business that could just put it on their roof now and reap
the benefits versus what would is there is there an
incentive from the government to do this?
» Well, a farmer who would put panels on their barn or in their field, they would
be using that energy. So they wouldn't be selling it to anybody else, which is
what this is. This is a a farmer would put up the panels and make it available
for people to purchase. >> Would he get a benefit from that?
» Yeah, because they're Yeah. And the solar probably the farmer would work
with the solar company to put up the array, but the farmer would definitely
benefit. Yes. >> Okay. But there are many there are many
farms and businesses in Lancaster County that already have these rooftop arrays
for their own use. >> Right. There's actually a farmer whose
land straddles Pennsylvania and Maryland. He has community solar on the
Maryland side. He would like to put it on the Pennsylvania side and he cannot.
» Yeah. I believe the bill um says that the owner of the array can't reap more
than 50% of the benefits um because it is a community solar event
or uh installation. So, it's meant to be for the broader community to buy into.
» Right. >> What um what u issues have you had with
municipalities around zoning for the panels? Have you any any challenges
about that? >> Well, in Pennsylvania, we don't have it
yet. So, it hasn't come up. >> Yeah.
» Commission has to write the rules before you get to decide what might be
appropriate locally. So Jerry, about 20 years ago, the first
um groundmounted solar on a farm went in in Lancaster County. And when that
happened, the Penn or the Lancaster County planning department worked with
municipalities across the county to adopt regulations around solar
installations to protect farms largely. But some communities like ours um wrote
those provisions into our own regulations.
Um I don't know Elijah if you want to say anything more about that because we
do regulate solar. It is already regulated.
» Yeah. And we actually prohibit ground arrays here in the burrow in part
because we're a growth area and that's not necessarily seen as the best value
for burrow land. Uh we do allow them in uh on buildings and those kind of
collocations. And as you may have heard, we're looking at changing uh planning
commission is looking at changing the restriction to right now we have a total
prohibition of solar panels in the historic district. Uh I have some
concerns with that because it's treating it as kind of a unique case that any
other kind of HVAC system isn't treated. So uh we're looking at scaling that back
so that it if it's not visible like this roof that's right out here, um what's
the impact on the historic district? And I don't really have an answer to that.
So, >> and we are also working with the
historic area advisory committee on um getting some recommendations on how we
can allow solar in the historic district. So,
great. Any questions from anyone in the audience for the presenters this
evening?
No. Okay. Well, we have resolution 1034 in front of us this evening. It's a
resolution of the Bureau of L. It's calling on the legislature of
Pennsylvania to pass legislation to allow for the creation of a community
energy program in Pennsylvania.
Would anyone like to make a motion on that resolution this evening?
I will move that borrow council approve the resolution calling on the
legislature of the commonwealth to pass legislation.
Um it references uh the commonwealth calls on the Pennsylvania State Senate
to approve House Bill 504. Obviously it will have its own senate
bill and it is in committee now. um the Community Energy Act as proposed by
Representative Peter Schwire, which passed 114 to 89 in the Pennsylvania
House to provide for community energy facilities.
» Do we have a second to that motion? >> Second.
» All those in favor? >> I opposed.
» Resolution 1034 passes. Thank you for your time this evening.
Thank you all for coming in and for reaching out to us about this
opportunity to help advance clean energy in Pennsylvania. Appreciate that very
much and we'll be in touch.
We'll make sure that our state senator knows about this as well.
» We let him know that we were considering it. Okay, great. Yep.
» Thank you. Okay, we're going to move on to three
presentations by the chief of police. First has to do with an ebike
sponsorship that they have. >> I ask Jason and Bark if they'd be able
to come up and join me. >> Sure.
» I just have to bring something through a >> show and tell. I love it.
Thank you. So, uh, up here with me, I
» Branley, I know most of you from interactions with the bike shop and
other uh, businesses, business ideas. Uh, we own Lotus bike works.
» There you go. Uh Jason Burke holder the guy local.
» So a lot of what our police department does both in terms of policing staffing
special events involves putting officers on bikes whether it's in the downtown
district parks trail systems etc. There's benefits practically speaking
because the officers can get to areas that maybe they couldn't with a car. For
example, a large special event where roads are closed, you can't get a car in
or out. Um, one of my priorities when I became chief was to increase uh the
visibility, the accessibility of our offic community, increase officer health
and wellness. Uh, get them out of the car, get them on foot, get them out in
the community on bikes. What we had was an aging fleet of bikes. We currently
have one ebike. The rest of the bikes are traditional pedicycles. Um, they're
aging. We had to put a plan forward to replace them. Um, so with that said, uh,
Jason and Mark had collaborated and, uh, generously, uh, had donated two of these
brand new state-of-the-art ebikes to the police department at their cost. Uh,
there's no cost from the burrow. Uh and in addition to uh that with with Mark's
assistance, we were successful in a grant award to offset the cost of a
third ebike to ensure that our officers have the the latest and greatest
technology with the ebikes to make sure that we are best prepared to handle the
special events, especially those that a car just can't get into. It'll increase
our ability to get officers out of the cars, out in the trails, in the parks,
the the different neighborhoods. And of course, like I said, the health and
wellness benefit of getting them out, getting them accessible to the public
more easily. And then just again, the the the exercise, the cardio that goes
with it. So, I wanted to take this opportunity to show what the bike looks
like. And then again to recognize these two. Um, you know, we enjoy a ton of
support from the community and we certainly appreciate this type of
support as well. But I I think what's equally as important, maybe not quite as
obvious as as the financial contribution, is it shows there's an
alignment between the vision of the police department and that we try to be
community oriented in so far as the community recognizes that and goes above
and beyond to make sure that we can meet uh that mandate that we put on ourselves
and what the community expects. So, I just want to take this opportunity to
thank both of you. These bikes will serve the department and the community
for many years to come. And again, it takes the burden off the tax base. And
we appreciate the fact that they've partnered with us to make this happen.
If there's anything you guys want to say, I don't want to steal all the
thunder. I mean, really, the credit goes to you, too.
» No, we just uh we just love the fact that that the Litzboro Police is so well
loved and well respected in the community. You know, even in their cars,
they're very well respected. But but realistically uh when they're out
interacting with the public, everybody enjoys them and we'd like to see that
happen more. So talking Jared and finding out there was a need just had an
opportunity to fill it. About 30 years ago in um Eastn
Pennsylvania, there was a perception problem mostly among teenage and youth.
Guess that town teenager see a squad car and the
instinct was to scurry away. >> So bike shop there called Genesis
Bicycle that followed really active in the community also.
They approached the their town and they said, "If we were to
take officers off out of the cars and put them on bikes, would that change the
perception?" They took a chance. They put about 10 officers on bikes with a
program similar to what we're doing here. That completely changed how the
teenagers saw the police officer. They started riding alongside them. They did
community bike rides with them. At one point they had almost 50 kids on a
weekly ride where the officers would show them safety and police quickly
became friends and no longer this this scary boogeyman in the squad car with
lights. And um I'm just happy that we
on behalf of council I want to thank all of you for your generosity and your
ability to work together and and to be able to pull this off. This is just
wonderful. And on a second note, I wanted to welcome Mark and his business
to the burrow. I believe you will be opening soon.
» End of May. >> End of May. We're really close to that.
So, so we will have a new bike outdoor shop right here in downtown Litz again.
So, that's really exciting for us to have that here. So, so welcome.
» Camping gear, bicycles, hiking. There you go.
» He's open to suggestions. Make suggestions of what you want in the
store.
» So, thanks a lot.
» Thank you. Thank you all. >> There's a question.
» Oh, we have a question and a photo op.
I got a picture >> now.
point of view.
Oh, your eyes are behind. I'm trying to photo.
» I don't want I don't want to throw >> your halo. You're talking about your
» Are we gonna see you on this bike, Chief? Okay. All right. Hold to it.
Great.
» I wonder if he was going to just ride it away and be like,
» he has two more presentations to do. >> He's here for the duration.
Hey.
» So, yeah, that was all I had for the ebikes and again, thank you for allowing
us the opportunity to recognize what they've done.
» Okay. Should I take the next? >> Sure.
» So, um part of the um police officer training, new police officer training,
is that police officers go through a 12-month probationary period. And so
tonight, Chief Han has an update for us on one of the officers who has completed
uh the 12-month uh probationary training. Correct. Like Council Member
Max said, Officer Joseph Giovano started with us beginning of last April 2025. He
successfully completed uh all of our field training internal uh program,
which is what we bring new officers into, even if they come with us from
prior experience. It ensures that, you know, they're familiar with the
policies, procedures, uh the way that the Litz police operates. Uh he
successfully completed that. He's successfully completed the 12-month
probationary period. He's met every benchmark that we've asked any new
officer to complete. And he is at the point where he's eligible to be
considered by council to be released from probationary status and eligible
for regular full-time status as a police officer. Um he's integrated well to the
community and to the department. He's demonstrated that he's an asset to both
and it would be my strong recommendation that he be retained as a regular
full-time officer.
Genco
Second. >> All those in favor?
» I >> Thank you very much.
» Thank you and congratulations to Gio. >> Thank you.
» So, next we're going to have the 2025 Police Department report.
» So, this is the annual report from 2025. It's a 30-page report. It gets very
granular with a lot of different statistics and and outcomes and
different initiatives and and a lot of storytelling from some of the successes
and and outcomes from last year. I I boiled it down to just a handful of
slides because I I realize you're going to hear me talk a lot tonight. So, I
wanted to hit some of the high points. The full 30page report is available at
litpd.org. It's pinned at the top of the website. It's also on all of our social
media. So, I would strongly encourage everybody to take a look at it at some
point, browse through the information. I think it highlights a lot of good stuff
that the department has done with the community last year. And uh but for the
purpose of tonight, I I've highlighted several areas that I I anticipated would
be of interest and uh I'm going to go through these slides and certainly if
there's questions on any of those slides or those topics or anything in general
at the end, please just let me know. So this represents the the total number
of police dispatched calls for service in 2025 and this is the number that
comes from the Lanster County 911 center. So this this number is applied
equally amongst all police departments in the county. So this is a call that
gets called into 911 or the non-emergency line and then gets
dispatched to uh the officers in the jurisdiction. the last year in 2025,
there were just over 7,200 uh calls for police service in the burrow. Um if you
average that out on a daily basis, it's about 20 times a day that there's a need
for police service. And again, that can range from uh a domestic disturbance. It
can be a mental health issue. It could be um an ambulance assist. Somebody fell
and and the ambulance needs help. So it's the wide gamut of uh of types of
service. So you can see if you look at the green trend line if if you look back
to uh 2014 you know the demand for service has gradually been increasing
and and this is specific to Littisboro. Those numbers that you see are specific
to just Lisp and Lisbon. So, I wanted to highlight that uh again about 20 times a
day the the police department is acting in some official capacity getting called
into service for some type of reason. And this is a look back on the total
number of reported crime just in Litzboro. So, this looks back to 2009.
So, one of the things I'm proud of is if you look at that that green trend line,
it's a very sharp downward trend. You go back to 2009,
you know, we're above 400 crimes a year. That's more than once a day. We're you
look at 2025 as 175. And you can see through that that that chart how the you
know the numbers have fluctuated over the years. But that's certainly good
movement in the uh the crime trends. And you know what's important is is
publishing this information because the the actual rate of crime is equally as
important as the perception or fear of crime. So we want to make sure that
people have an accurate understanding of what the crime picture is. How much
crime, what type of crime, and it's not detailed in this presentation, but if
you go to the annual report, it'll list out every category of crime uh that was
reported last year. you know what the crime was, whether it was solved or not,
and you could really get granular in the exploration of the report to see what
specific type of crime has been reported to us. So that's total reported crime.
So that can be crime that somebody discovers or happens to them and they
call us to report it. But it's also crime that officers through their
proactive patrols may intervene. You know, for example, an officer on the
night shift patrol comes across somebody who they suspected being a DUI driver.
they pull them over, they end up being intoxicated. That's a crime that the
officer discovered. So this represents any crime discovered regardless of how
it's discovered. And I think what's equally important is if you look at the
the bar chart on the right, those percentages correspond to the amount of
crime that's cleared. And clear means you've identified a suspect, they've
been arrested, or you've identified a suspect and they weren't arrested for
some reason. Perhaps the victim didn't want to press charges. There's a number
of reasons that that can happen, but I think the takeaway for people is that
crime's been cleared, has been solved one way or another. So, if we look at
the top bar in 2025, uh 80 almost 86% of the crime in the burrow was solved. Now,
a little caveat to that, some of the crime that was reported last year is
still under investigation. So, you know, there may be the possibility that number
gets higher, but for the point in time that this was created, it was 85%. And I
think it's important to compare that because when you look at the total crime
clearance for Lancaster County, it's uh about 10% lower than what it is in the
burrow. And then if you zoom out even farther and you look at the total amount
of crime cleared in the Commonwealth, it's at 55%. So I think what I would
suggest to you is you know this is a good representation of crime is going
down. It's been sustained going down for 15 plus years and the crime that is
happening here our team has been effective in solving at a higher rate
than what you see at the county or the state level.
Another area that that typically comes up in discussion is is traffic crashes.
you know, traffic concerns. You know, we've adopted the principle of the three
E, engineering, enforcement, and education. Any effective traffic
management program has to incorporate all three. If you lean too heavily on
one and exclude the others, you're likely going to be uh either ineffective
or not as effective as you can be. So, in 2025, there was 147 reported crashes
in the burrow. And again, if you look at that over the last 10 years, those
numbers have been going down as well. the the rate of decline is not quite as
sharp as what the crime is, but still a downward trend and suppressing the
crashes. Uh I felt was important to share. If you look at the the top five
reasons why crashes happen in the burrow, according to our crash reports,
about 40% of the crashes are caused by uh stop sign violations, uh roadways
lane for traffic. That's just simply meaning that somebody leaves their lane
for one reason or another and it's not safe to do so.
uh following too closely, careless driving, or limitations on backing.
There's a lot of other reasons why crashes happen, but these five reasons
account for about 40% of all the crashes that happened in the burrow last year.
So, this is a heat map of where the crashes occurred in the burrow last
year. You can see there's there's quite a cluster in the 501 corridor, you know,
right downtown, north of town up by Lincoln Avenue, south of town as you get
down towards like Wise, uh, Turkey Hill, Sixth Street intersection. Um, so all
those plots don't necessarily represent a single crash. Um, the different colors
and size of the dots are all like an intensity map to show uh what the
clustering of crashes are. So, we talked about 147 crashes that involved uh 301
people that were in those 147 crashes. Uh 24 of them were hurt. Thankfully,
zero of them were killed and a total of 291 units. So, a car, a truck, a bike, a
pedestrian were units in a crash. So, u what that tells us is we have the data.
We know where the crashes are happening. we know why the crashes are happening.
That allows us to be efficient with our resources to direct patrol officers or
discussions about traffic safety solutions to put the focus and the
energy on where the data tells us that needs to be focused instead of blindly
trying to address a problem without the data behind it to support it. If you
look at the pie chart, I'm sorry, below, um, reportable versus non-reportable
crash. It's just what that indicates. In the Commonwealth of Pennsylvania, Pendot
only collects crash reports from police departments if it's reportable. So that
would be a crash where somebody's injured, somebody's killed, or uh where
a car is damaged to the extent it can't be driven on its own. Um so when you
look at that criteria that PENDOT's interested in collecting data for, it's
about uh half of the the crashes in the burrow are to that level of severity
that Pendot's collecting crash data on them.
I'm good, Rob. Thank you. So, again, in the 30-page report,
there's a lot of uh kind of high level detail, but there's also some very
granular detail. U if you look at the the icons to the right, it's just some
highle data as far as number of times different things have happened in the
burrow. But one of the things I wanted to call out is uh 99.99%
of the official police citizen encounters that we had. So these are all
official contacts. You got pulled over for something, the police got called to
your home for something. You interact with an officer in official capacity.
It's not, you know, you run into an officer at the coffee shop and you talk
for a couple minutes. These are the official contacts.
We estimate there's about 17,000 official police citizen contacts because
some incidents have multiple officers that respond, some incidents have
multiple people involved. Out of those 17,000 that we estimate, two require the
application of physical force to achieve a lawful objective. And why I think
that's important is yes, that the technical skills, the competencies are
important, but that's not the only thing that we look for in our officers,
especially in a community oriented department. So what this data tells us
is that 99.9% of the time or 16,998 times the most effective tool that the
officer possessed was their mind and their mouth. And I think that's
reflected in our hiring decisions, what we instill in our officers as far as how
we expect them to interact with the community, having the technical
competencies, but also making sure that they have the interpersonal skills that
our community requires. And that was one data set that I wanted to pull out
because I think it proves that we're living up to that ideal. And um again,
there's a lot that goes into deciding who you want to hire your police
officers. And you know, we've made that a priority. And I I think this is the
result of those priorities. >> Sarah, quick question. That's that
should be 2025 overre. It was a typo. Okay. Yeah.
» Just wanted to make sure. >> Correct. Thank you.
So again it also details um you know the the the community oriented uh aspect of
the department all the instances where the officers participated in community
events whether it's the bike rodeos in town the special events in town the
station tours and national night out you know there are 34
formalized community events that we participated in so you know you average
it out that's three times a month that our officers are engaged with the
community in some sort of, you know, social non- enforcement way, building
those relationships, getting to know people, business owners, neighbors,
residents. Um, and that's important to me and and I see that it's important to
our officers. Um, because policing is much more than just writing tickets and
enforcing the law, especially in in a community like Litz. So these pictures
demonstrate what they do and and I can tell you this doesn't even come close to
the total number of things that they've done. I mean we've had people come and
send us a message. Thanks for stopping by our lemonade stand. Thanks for
shooting basketball the kids in the driveway. So so much of that stuff
happens. It just just doesn't get captured in in a picture or in a formal
event. So I'm confident in saying this is under reportporting those types of
connections. But, you know, this is what I had to offer. And it was just
important for me to share the proof that the officers are out there doing what we
expect them to do as far as building and maintaining those relationships with the
community. Thank you, Rob. This is going to be hard
to read, but all this is in uh big font on the report. So, this is all feedback
that we've gotten from community members. Whether uh no matter how it's
collected, the this is all stuff the community members have reported back to
us. I'm just going to read a couple of them because I know you probably can't
read them, but I'm so thankful that we have a business in Litzboro. What care
and kindness from the officers, thank you. Litz is fortunate to have the LBPD.
The officers were professional, listened to what I was saying, and willing to
help if needed. Thank you for all LP LBPD does for our town. We are so
blessed to have all of you. Lis is the best little town because of you guys.
Thank you for being the best friends, neighbors, and folks we can trust. So
this is all feedback from community members that they have given to the
department over the last year. So it's important to call that out because if
someone's going to take the time to give us that positive feedback, we want to
make sure that we receive it and that we share it where it's appropriate.
Good, Rob. So that's it. That that's 30 pages of of comprehensive reporting
boiled down to a couple of slides. Um if anybody wants to read the pool report,
you can just click the QR code. it'll take you right there or visit our
website. It's there. But, um, trying to be respectful of everybody's time, so
I'm happy to answer any topics on question or any questions on topic or if
there's something else that you want me to speak to, I'm certainly happy to.
» I I also want to say I do appreciate reading your Facebook pages,
especially when when you have events coming up, I just get a kick out of
that. But keep it going. >> Thank you.
I know one of your goals was to increase the community
uh community policing activities. Your report reflects that. So, thank you for
doing that. >> Sure.
» Thank you.
» I had I had opportunity to go through that report at length and I want to say
that this also happens to be a one-year anniversary for our chief. Uh so he was
installed about one year ago. So, I think it's appropriate opportunity to
say commendations to you for incredible work that you do in this community and
leading you officers. >> Well, thank you. I appreciate it. It's
It looks easy when you have a great team and a supportive community and a
supportive uh leadership uh like all of you. Um so, we appreciate it. I
appreciate it. And yeah, it may look easy, but really it comes down to the
hard work that I see our officers and our staff put in every single day. And I
guess I'm the guy in this respect that kind of pulls all together with pictures
and a report, but I'm always happy to highlight what they do. Thank you.
» Thanks. >> Please express our gratitude to your
team. >> Thank you. I'll pass that along.
» Any questions from the public regarding the presentation?
No. >> Well, thanks again for uh spending some
time with us this evening. Thank you.
So, now that we're done with presentations, we're going to move on to
agreements. And I'm going to turn this over to Elijah to let him lead this
discussion. >> Sure. I have quite a few notes on this
actually. So, Lloyd was approached by, we're going to say, a very ambitious
fence contractor. Both of these agreements are from the same fence
contractor. Both of them are on uh East 6th Street, and both of them involve
drainage easements. uh one is a private drainage ement between two houses. The
other one is uh the drainage ement for butterfly acres uh before it was created
into what's called a critical aquifer recharge area where essentially there
are holes that let the water go in. Um our ordinances prohibit anything from
being placed inside a storm water easement. So Lor's first answer was no,
you can't do that. Uh they were persistent. They followed up and they
said well our design is not going to incur any kind of issues with flow. Uh
so Lori sent them to the engineer. They paid for the engineer to consult on
site. The engineer is fine with what's being proposed and the engineer actually
provided a template of a agreement that is the basis of this that was uh um he's
using other municipalities that was shared with the solicitor. The solicitor
has no concerns with this. Um so staff has no concerns. uh engineer has no
concerns and the zoning officer has no concern or excuse me the engineer has no
concerns. Uh so both of them very similar. They're only real changes the
uh the property information between the two. Any questions?
Elijah, I have a question about the extent of the
um the the property with the the drainage easement on that intersects
with Butterfly Acres. >> Yes.
» Their property line goes all the way back to the middle of the
» No. >> Okay. There's a separate that's a
separate deed property. >> Yes. So, we actually own that swale.
» When that was originally uh developed and I think that was in ' 03, there was
actually a flood plane in that area. If you look at the old flood maps, there
was one there because of the efforts um of Butterfly Acres and the improvements
that have gone in, that flood plane has been removed by FEMA. Uh so, we don't
know exactly where that drainage area is, but I can confidently say that it
has changed from 2003 to the present. But the installation of the fence will
not impede the water from moving through should there be a heavy rain or
something. Correct. Based on based on current current site conditions and what
is proposed. If for some reason there is an issue, this agreement allows that
fence to be removed at the owner's cost. >> Okay. Thank you.
» No other questions. Any questions from the public on these agreements?
If not, I'd look for a motion first on agreement 584.
» Motion to approve uh agreement 584 for 213 East 6 Street storm the storm water
agreement. >> Second.
» All those in favor? >> I I
» opposed. We'll move on to 585. I move to approve agreement 585
which is uh for 208 East 6th Street storm water agreement.
» Second. >> All those in favor?
» I I >> I.
» Okay. Both agreements pass. Okay. So, the next thing on our agenda
is the consent agenda. Are there any items within the consent agenda that any
council members would like to pull out for additional conversation during I
think we pull those out to the subcommittee reports. Is that correct?
Yes, that would be them. >> I I would like to pull out the uh
special events the number three the downtown lit second Saturdays. Just want
some clarification. >> Oh, that sounds great. We'll pull that
out to the streets and traffic report. >> Okay. Any other items?
If not, I'd look for a motion to approve the consent agenda this evening.
» Move to approve consent agenda. >> Second.
» All those in favor? >> I
» opposed. Okay. Consent agenda passes. We will move into the treasures report.
Rob.
» Uh, thanks Scott. Uh, everybody has the, uh, treasures report there in front of
them, a hard copy. Um just one thing to pull out. If you look at the uh revenues
in the general fund for the month of April, uh they outgainained our expenses
and that trend continued down through all of our major funds, water fund,
sewer fund, uh storm water drainage fund, etc. So, uh this is the first
month that's happened. This is typical because of um taxes coming in, things of
that nature. So, um nothing other than that to report um on the treasur's
report. >> Thanks. Any questions for Rob?
No. Think we would need a motion to approve one invoice that was separated.
» Motion to approve the April DMA MS4 invoice.
» Second. >> All those in favor? I
» I recuse myself from that vote. approved. Next, we'll move on to council
members forum. We have the first one, personnel and benefits.
He has something for us on new officer hires.
» Uh, thank you. Yes, the personnel and benefits committee conducted two
interviews for two new police officers on April 21st, 2026.
and Chief Han will provide more information about who they are and next
steps.
» Sure. >> So, uh the the two officers uh
contingent upon council's approval would be uh officer Lewis Castillo. Uh he's
technically a replacement for uh say recently retired a year ago Carrie Nye
uh replacing that position. Then the second would be for Adam Webb who's
would be a replacement for uh an officer who will be retiring at the end of this
year who uh has completed by that point 27 years of service to the burrow. So uh
both applicants have gone through the civil service process. They've been
interviewed by civil service. They've undergone the written examination by
civil service. They've completed all the civil service application procedures. uh
they've uh successfully went through all the uh the PLA accreditation prehire
standards that exist. They've gone through uh vetting by the subcommittee
of personnel through interviewing. Um, so it's simply at the point now to um
approve the the the offers uh with an officer starting uh first one starting
June 1st of 2026 and with a uh a deferred hiring of the second uh
starting around August 1st of 2026 as well. And again, they're not adding
positions. They're simply replacing uh recently retired and soon to be retired
officers.
And these additions would have you at your full complement of officers then?
» Correct. We uh I almost don't want to say this, but for the first time in
about 5 years, we'll be back up to full staff. So, um I don't want to jinx it,
but so this will get us back up to the uh the complement of authorized officers
and back to full staffing after several years.
Thank you for all the work that you put into
bringing these candidates to us in addition to the work that the personnel
committee and the civil service commission did. Really appreciate it.
» And I just add, you know, both these officers uh have come to us with prior
experience. You know, will be trained gone through our field training process.
Um they'll have the probationary period. uh our team feels strongly that that
again going back to what I spoke with in the report presentation they have the
competency that the the technical skills but also they'll be a good fit for Liz
they have uh personal and family connections to the community and uh we
have every expectation that they'll fit in well with the department and well
with the community.
Yeah, I was privileged to be part of the personnel committee's interview with
both officers and very impressed with who they are and their interest in this
community. So, thank you for bringing qualified, capable people to us. So, I
So, I'm uh making a motion to employ Lewis Castillo
Castillo as a full-time Lisboro police officer detective June 1st, 2026.
» Second. All those in favor? I >> I
» opposed. Passes. >> I'm making a motion to employ Adam Webb
as a full-time Lisboro police officer effective August 1st, 2026.
» Second. >> All those in favor?
» I passes.
» Thank you. >> Yeah. Thank you very much.
» Our next subcommittee report is streets and traffic.
Okay, I'm going to go back up to the um just
wanted a little bit of clarification. Um chief
on the down I shouldn't have let you sit down on the downtown lit uh second
Saturday. I know there's three dates on there, but there's been some more
information like a little update wanted to share.
» Correct. So the history of this is the initial special line application was
submitted with uh all the second Saturdays um but with only three of them
that would request to close Juniper Lane from Broad Street here to about where
Collusions front door. So it's a very short length of Juniper Lane. So
initially what was presented in the application and what was initially to be
considered under the consent agenda was only to close that small length of lane
uh May, September, October. Uh since the agenda was published, there's been a uh
a request for modification that would essentially include closing that short
length of Juniper for all of the second Saturdays just for several hours during
the daytime Saturday from May through December. So, um, the intent by pulling
it off the sent agenda was not for the police department to signal any
opposition for the request. Quite the opposite. You know, last year it worked
well. There were zero issues. Um, it was simply just to make sure that council
had the opportunity to to fully consider the the amended request and uh ask
questions of either us or or I believe Jason's on the uh I don't mean to call
you out, but the uh the committee for second Saturday is just to make sure
that the conversations were happening uh to satisfy everybody's concern if there
were any. >> Thank you.
» Um anybody have any other questions about that? No. You said that last year
there were no comments received, no concerns raised.
Yeah. I have no >> nothing that made it through the police
department and and you know there's a a lot of people that can tend to be in
that area that sidewalk you turn on to Juniper Lane. So
» really it one of the the main pieces of this is just a public safety piece to
make sure that if somebody turns off at 501 on a Juniper Lane, they're not going
to inadvertently encounter somebody. It's a narrow alley. um sidewalk space
is narrow as well. So u that would be my position and the rationale for
supporting it be matter of public safety and uh again last year it happened
several times over the summer zero issues or complaint that made it back to
us. >> Yep.
I appreciate the opportunity to activate that space and get some more vibrant
activities in our downtown.
Make a motion for this because that separate
» Yeah. on the on the the activity and then the closing.
» Okay. I'd like to make a motion to uh approve the downtown lit second
Saturday's Juniper Lane closures and um I don't have the all the exact dates
» be May through December. >> Oh, that's right. Yes. May through
second. >> Yes.
» Second. >> All those in favor?
» I I cares.
» Thanks. maybe for a little bit.
Stay close. >> You can get that bite and ride back.
» All right. Um few things I wanted to share. So, as you recall last month, we
discuss discussed the possibility of a traffic study on new and cedar. So, is
it suggested that we looked uh the streets and traffic look at similar
instru uh intersections to see if a bundled study would reduce could could
reduce costs. So five were identified, but unlike New and Cedar, they have
little to no crash history um and almost no public concern. So the only exception
is Spruce and West Second, but PendOt uh Pendot has already selected this for
pedestrian upgrades. And when was that going to happen?
» So I think it's in the coming years. I don't have the exact date. Um but it's
essentially it's going to be a lighted pedestrian sign that blinks uh when
there's proximity to like a person going in. Um they reached out at the end of
last year as seeing if we would support it. We indicated we would. Uh 28 sticks
out of my mind as a possibility because of transportation projects take a while
to move. Um but I can follow up uh with a status on that.
» Okay. So given that and the cost involved, the
bundled study doesn't appear to be offer any meaningful savings. Um it makes more
sense to to most likely focus on the location where the there is a clear
need. Um, as far as North Cedar Street, it's been a concern for years. We looked
back at uh the residents raising issues at meetings um through direct contact
with the burrow. Uh there was even letters to the editor about this this uh
Cedar Street. So there is a history of also of handful of crashes um going back
over 10 plus years. So the basics for the basics for a potential study would
be twofold. to be an evaluation of the crash history and then the review of the
intersection's geometric design which may present inherent risks to motorists.
So with a combination of crashes, ongoing complaints, um near miss reports
and part of that there's been definitely several times
where I'm like, "Oh boy, that was pretty close." Um increased volume, cut through
traffic. Uh it makes sense to move forward with the study to to better
understand what if anything can be done to make this intersection more safe for
our public. You guys have questions?
Yes. So there's I know one of the concerns I believe last month was if
there'd be enough justification for uh
I don't even know call it I guess pedestrian improvement fourway
improvement and think there's enough justify well
we're just doing we're just looking for just a traffic study for the for the
experts to tell us if there's any modifications that would if I'm saying
this correctly um you know if if a four-way stop would if we meet enough
criteria to to warrant that. So we feel at this point it's worth having
a traffic study to tell to tell us >> okay
» if there's any changes that we can do to modify that that whole inter
asked the traffic and streets committee to come back to us with a recommendation
on this and sounds like you have done that
» I I work directioning
Um, I have a question about the um the nature of the study. It says a four-way
stop study study. So, if it doesn't warrant a four-way stop,
will there be recommendations in the report for other things that we might
consider doing in order to address the speeding
um issue that has been brought to our attention, numerous near misses,
increasing slight distance, things like that. or will it simply be a stop sign
is warranted or not warranted? What I guess what's the extent of the the study
that we're doing?
» I mean the initial discussion was about stops but it can be something that could
be part of the study is to look at is there traffic calming that can be worked
into the into the immediate area or are there other ways to control your
» we can request that. Yes. Yeah. Yeah. >> It would be very similar to what was
done on Sixth Street where there was a look at at what else might be able to be
done there to calm traffic. >> Yeah. Okay. Is my concern is that
because of the crash history as we've talked about there the limited crash
history that we're spending money for a report that's not going to give us a
warrant for a four-way stop. And so I'd like to at least have some additional
recommendations or even combined with additional recommendations increasing
the site distance there by extending the no parking zone perhaps. Um you know
there are ways you can kind of chicane traffic. So you get parking on one side
of the street and then switch it to the other side of the street. So it forces
people to slow down a little bit. So, just other recommendations. I would hate
to see us spend money to just find out that a four-way stop is not warranted.
» Thank you, Mary. You put that better. That's what I was trying to go for. But
» it sounds like we can kind of request what we're looking for. Yeah. Well, and
I think also at the end of the day, the community is coming to us with issues
and concerns and part of it is, you know, to your point, there's a cost
associated with it, but >> we probably still need to do our due
diligence and ask the questions if it warrants. And then then we can go to the
community and say, you know what, there's not enough information to deem
doing anything. And then we're at least doing our due diligence and uh
responding, >> right? Thank you for looking into that
for us. >> We have any questions about this in the
audience comments? Anybody online?
» There's one online. Yeah. Okay. It's uh >> it's Karen, so I'm going to unmute her
here. Karen Wel,
» you should be good. Karen, >> thank you. Rob, good evening, council
members. Mr. Mayor, >> can you hear me?
» Just a minute, Karen. I can't hear you. >> Okay, hang on. How about now?
» Jeez. And I'm known for the loud voice. Ju just a minute.
Try try something, Karen. Would it be now?
» No. I hear it coming from somewhere. >> It's coming through the phone.
Just a minute. You're coming through the phone with the camera.
» Thank you. >> So, the audience can hear you, but we
can't. >> Oh, for gosh sake.
» We hear a little voice somewhere. Karen, >> this in the community that hosts rock
lit. What's wrong with this picture?
» Okay, Karen, we can hear you now. >> Thank you so much. Thank you, Mr. Mayor
and council members. This is Karen Wyel, 202 North Cedar. Uh, as you know, we've
had a bit of an event at our home this last month, and uh, things are
progressing well. Um, I I do not totally disagree with a study for a four-way
stop at Cedar and New, but I don't think it's going to bring anybody any
resolution to those folks who think a four-way stop is going to be helpful
here. And that is because of the amount of um
people who roll through stop signs. Mary, you brought that up last month and
I see it every single day. um people who are speeding in town. Two
weeks ago, somebody actually actually passed me going south on on
Broad Street, passed me in the turning lane to get across to get forward of
three cars. It it boggles the mind. So, there are a lot of traffic problems in
town. We cannot deal with speeding as effectively as we would like to because
we quite frankly are con we're curtailed by the state legislature who will not
let our local uh police forces have um radar. And so until that is is settled
uh hopefully sometime in the future it will be although we've been working on
that for 40 years as as far as I can tell. Um, there are there are things
that we can do in town that I think might be a better use of money than
studying this specific uh intersection. Friday morning, this
past Friday morning, there was an accident a block away from here at a
four-way stop. Great visibility. Accidents happen. This is the human
nature. Uh, what I would suggest is that you take a specific portion of the money
that you would be throwing at a traffic study that we kind of know the answers
to already and you would put that with funds from
our police department to actually create an awareness and education campaign that
speaks to rolling through stop signs, excessive speeds, not paying attention
to pedestrians. In a month and a half, the kids are going to be out of school.
Tourists have already started coming into the community as they do every
year. We have pedest pedestrian safety to be cognizant of and to try to help
help those folks trying to cross the street uh cross safely.
Every time I stop at blinking lights in front of the park,
I put on my brakes and I look behind me to see if I'm going to get rearended by
somebody in back of me who's not paying attention because I'm paying attention
to pedestrians. So, we really need to address these
problems on a burrowwide and communitywide basis. We should be
pulling in Warwick and the Northern uh Police Department. We need to really
make this a communitywide effort to get people to slow down, pay attention and
drive really, you know, in a much better way. Perhaps this goes back to the fact
that schools don't teach driver's ed anymore. That's been about 25 years. I
think uh mayor probably knows. uh but really I think there are better ways to
spend this money and to make it a more holistic uh approach and to be to the
betterment of the entire community. That's it and I thank you very much for
your time. >> Thank you Karen.
» Can I take a minute and respond to that? Go ahead.
So, I think that's what I was getting at in really questioning the use of this
funding for a study is um Chief, you talked about education,
engineering, and enforcement. We can do so much with engineering. We
can, you know, put stripes perhaps on the pavement to get people to slow down.
We can do better um uh the piano key crosswalks.
We can do bumpouts. Some of the things that we're talking about doing over on
Sixth Street. All of those things cost money. And we also know that some of
those things do slow people down. Um there are um what they call paint and
pole um treatments that they use. Uh you may
see them if you go into Lancaster where they're putting them at intersections to
keep cars away from the intersection, increase visibility.
Um the other thing as Karen said is the education piece of it and honestly it's
a culture change. It's getting people to slow down, respect other road users.
It's not an easy thing but just raising awareness about that through education.
I you know I would and and then there's the
enforcement. I just looked up where we are with the there again there is a bill
in front of the legislature about allowing local municipalities to use
radar if we could get some legs on behind that.
They haven't wanted to move with it. Senator Malone, I don't know if you
talked to him about that re just recently, but you know there there is
legislation in introduced every session to allow radar and one of these times
they've got to they've got to move it in our favor. Um
so personally I would be much m more in favor of using our limited dollars for
something like that.
that point.
» Sure. >> So, I I do want to just highlight uh a
lot of um those directed enforcements are already happening. We get quite a
bit of grant stream funding to take officers and specifically detail them to
traffic safety initiatives. So, these aren't officers that are working and and
trying to split that responsibility with handling calls, whatever else is
happening. Um so we do get quite a bit of grant funding. We do have uh quite a
bit of participation in uh focusing on areas such as impaired driving detection
enforcement, aggressive driving which kind of bundle stop signs, speeding, you
know, aggressive lane changes, those types of things. Um as well as
pedestrian safety and high visibility. So all that stuff already is happening
and and again to go back to the annual report where, you know, there's a
10-year decline in crashes. I certainly would suggest that we're making headway
on that to the point where I I I don't know that it's realistic to expect that
you're reducing the crash crash risk to zero because there's always going to be
the human element that you can't control. Um but I just wanted to make
sure that it was understood just very generally that that through the state
funding um you know we have officers participating in all the things that
that Karen suggested which are all good things u because it allows the officers
to dedicate their time to those activities as opposed to being something
they're doing in a little bit of downtime on a regular patrol shift. So
those directed enforcements have been happening. Um, again, we look at the
data to tell us where the crashes are happening, why they're happening, so
that we're making the best and most efficient use of our officers, and the
time that we're putting into these efforts. So, I just wanted to highlight
that just to make sure it was understood.
Thanks for your feedback. Yeah, I think we have a comment. If you could
come up to the microphone.
» Hello. Uh, my name is Chris McIn. I live at 131 North Cedar Street. Uh so in
between new and front street uh I I I personally support this type of study.
Um I live there for a few months now. Uh I
walk to the laundromat cuz I don't have laundry machines and it's perilous
sometimes. like sometimes your laundry runs out a little late into the night
and sun's starting to set and you're just like h but I I do support this kind
of study just because of the high volume and hearing people rip down the street
is not pleasant nor is it safe. I know that kids walk home from school on the
street. I'm not saying I necessarily support a uh a four-way stop. I I'm I I
support looking at the street as a whole. I've been on streets in New York
City with le traffic that come down North Seer Street and like uh on the on
the part of like the policing and stuff and education, it really just seems like
people don't care. Anyone that's just and I I don't feel that my peace and
safety should be up to people that are trying to shave a minute off their
commute to get home. Um, I understand that enforcement is limited, but I also
understand humans just the people that come down that street that don't live
there do not care. And it it's it's pretty obvious. And it it I I don't know
how else to relay it. They just do not care. Uh, so like checks or anything to
like maybe slow people down. I I appreciate the police officers that roll
down my street at the speed limit cuz it doesn't shake my house, which is
fantastic. And I I think I think you guys can agree that nobody should not
want to be in their house. Correct. Everyone deserves some type of peace. I
work 10 to 11 hours a day. I come home and you know what I did yesterday? I cut
grass in order to drown out the amount of traffic that rolls by my house. I
don't want to cut my lawn, but you know, I do it. Uh, but I I guarantee you if
any of you spent any amount of time in my house,
you would find it unreasonable to just sit there and listen to what
equates to a two-lane highway. I know I've said that before, but it does turn
into two-lane highway sometimes, and people just do not care. My parents came
to visit me last month and my mom had her hip replaced. So, we had to pull up
to the house on the side of the street and she's getting out of the car. Some
dude just whizzes by going well over 25. So, I I'm just trying to relay the point
that the people that come down that road do not care. Uh, and I do support a
study. Sorry. I'm very passionate about this.
» Yeah. Thanks for your feedback. >> Thank you.
Anybody else?
» We got two more.
I think of the three E that the chief referenced. I think there
I don't know that a study is what's needed to get to the engineering part.
whether it's just the police could could make recommendations as to what could be
done that that section but I I think that particular intersection especially
that that stretch of North Cedar some engineering changes need to be made
in order in order to in order to reduce reduce speed and increase safety and so
whether it's the study or whether it's recommendations from the police I think
you know communitywide education is really important on speed we are seeing
a reduc reduction of of accidents across the burrow. This is a particular hot
spot and and the neighbors are very concerned and we need to demonstrate
that we're taking it seriously and that and that m that there are mitigation
efforts that we we can do. Just a question of how we get there, whether it
needs to be a study or or or recommendations from the chief and you
know between the between the committee and the chief, I'm sure you can work out
what's the best next step. But the engineering of that intersection needs
to be addressed as much as communitywide education about speeding overall.
Thanks, Tom. Yeah. Do we have another hand in the back?
» There's a there's a toolbox of traffic control, traffic calming measures that
are out there. Those are those are one of them. There's pluses and minus to
minuses to all of them. There's pluses and minuses to those. But I think what
we've talked about tonight is is looking to authorize the traffic engineer to
look at the intersection for for the geometric concerns and the safety
concerns at it and to look at traffic calming measures in that area. how we
might be able to that's again there's a toolbox that you can go to to pull out
traffic calming measures um to to look at to help address the concerns that
we've heard tonight and over the many months before this
» and if we would do a traffic study uh the work that the chief has done with
his officers would continue ongoing education so maybe the two
wrong approach which would help solve some of the problems.
» Sure. Yeah. I think all three all three of those those
steps that the chief outlined in his study and what we talked about here, the
three E are what we're looking at, not exclusive to one or two of them, but to
try and utilize the whole the whole uh collection to get to where we have a
safer condition. And um again, I think it was mentioned by one of the other
members sort of the due diligence of of this group and of the streets and
traffic to make sure that we we look at what we can do to address these concerns
that have consistently been brought up about this this stretch of roadway.
» Anybody else? All right. Make a motion. um like to
make a motion to approve. We'll just call a traffic study um for the North
Cedar and North New Street intersection. >> I have a motion. Do I have a second?
» Second. >> Was in favor? I
» I >> I
» opposed. Passes. Thank you very much. >> Right. I just want to give you two
updates. Um from streets and traffic. So, West Main Street, the water man
replacement is finished. Um, public works is installing a new fire hydrant
this week and they expect the road to be open by Friday. Don't hold us to it, but
that's what we're going for. Um, so while the road is opened, the trench
that they dug is going to be filled with stone top and that has to sit for some
time and then the restoration of the trench will occur most likely the end of
May. So, one more thing, streets, uh, front street paving. Just wanted to get
an up give you an update on that too. uh contract indicates that paving cannot
start until after school is out. So curbs will will be replaced first and
then the paving will begin and the project is is uh needs to be completed
prior to the school starting the end of August
and that's all we've got from streets and traffic.
» Great. Thanks for the updates. And maybe as a little clarification on West Main
Street, this this patching and settling will be what we'll we'll have for the
rest of 26. And then in 27, the road will be rebuilt. So, it'll be a little
bumpy for a spell until until that all has a chance to to settle and and and be
ready for some rework next year. You'll see a smooth road there. Great. I think
» Oh, question in the rear. Oh.
Um they're going to go from Cedar the whole way to the end by the school
» township line. Yes. Sure.
» No other questions. Okay. We're going to move on to uh buildings and grounds and
we're going to have an update on our front desk hours by Rob
» Derry. Sorry, >> confront that. Yes, there's been some
transition going on in our receptionist u position and the staff has taken a
look at uh the future of that position and deciding that that position can be
part-time. Uh as a result of that, we're going to
be changing the office hours uh for uh that area for people to come in. I think
Rob can give us an update on what that would look like.
» Yeah. Yeah. So, the um the reception the person who sits at the reception area um
will be Monday through Friday 10:00 a.m. to 1:30 p.m. um or someone actually
being there at the desk. The offices are still open Monday through Friday 8 to 4,
but for someone at the desk Monday through Friday, 10 to 1:30.
Are there any questions regarding that change or update?
No. Okay. Keep moving along. We have subcommittee report on storm water.
Yeah. Thank you. Um what I want to present you with tonight is an
opportunity to become a partner with the Lancaster Cleanwater Partners. The
Lancaster Cleanwater Partners were formed uh probably almost 10 years ago
now. Um they work under a um model of collective impact bringing together
people from across the county who are wa working towards clean water. They
mobilize collaborative partnerships, deploy countywide strategy for clean
water in compliance with the Chesapeake Bay Agreement. Um acquire adequate
sustained funding and share countywide progress.
um to become a member is pretty simple. B or to become a partner. There's no
cost involved. Um it's a pretty simple process of um filling out a form telling
them why we're interested in becoming a partner. Um, in exchange as a partner,
we receive communications consultation, promotion on their website, um,
materials for promoting water quality work and involvement with the other
partners, training and facilitation, which will be of value to, um, our
environmental coordinator and the community as a whole. Um, and then, uh,
just some regular updates and things like that. So, there's really no
downside to doing this except for maybe full email boxes or m more full email
boxes. Um, but it's a great um organization who is doing a lot of work
at both the state and the national level bringing funding into the community to
help with the many projects that we need to undertake in order to protect our
local streams and waters. So, um I wanted to bring this to you all tonight.
Um hopefully you've had a chance to look over some of the information and I would
like to make a motion that the burrow become a partner um to the clean water
partners and authorize um Elijah and Jordan to work on
submitting the partner um sign up form. >> Thank you for bringing that to us
tonight. So we have a motion. Do we have a second on that motion?
» Second. >> All those in favor?
» I I >> approved.
» Thank you. Anything else on storm water this evening?
» Um yeah, just real quick. Um this is storm water but um in a roundabout way.
Um we are um as part of the Lancaster County Water Week um which is uh the
first full week of June. We're offering um tours of the wastewater treatment
plant to the public. I think I mentioned this last month, but you can sign up to
take a tour of the plant. Um, and those are going to be offered at 10:00 a.m. on
June 9th. I see lots of interesting reactions out there to this. Um, 10:00
June 9th or um 400 p.m. on June 11th. There are only 10 spaces for each tour,
so sign up quickly. go to Lancaster Water Week. Just put that into your
search engine and you'll come up with a list of all of the activities happening
across the county. You will certainly find other things you might want to do
um to get out and enjoy uh our waterways and um the great quality of life and
assets that we have here in the county. But the wastewater treatment plant tour
is going to be the highlight. I'm just telling you. So, sign up quickly.
Quite honestly, it's fascinating. I was I was blown away walking through
that and and seeing the process. It's it's it's really neat to hear what all
goes on and and what it takes to clean the water and keep us in in good
standing and good health. So, it's awesome.
» Thank you for that endorsement because I I saw some faces out there that I'm not
No, seriously. Um yeah. So, thank you all. We'll be doing a little bit of
social media probably about that to get the word out if you don't all take up
all the empty spaces. We don't want to promote it if you've already all signed
up. So, >> thank you. We're going to move on to
reports by the mayor and the chief of police. We'll start with the mayor this
evening. >> Thank you, President Hayne. Uh you may
recall that in December, uh the council and the mayor at that time entered into
a sister city agreement with Freeport, Illinois. Uh, it's my honor to invite
Mayor Tim Snyder forward uh to give us an update on what's happened since that
time.
uh on um yeah that would be April 14th uh Tim Connor from our sister city which
we approved back in December uh of Freeport, Illinois presented us with
this key to his city. And so I propose that so that we can hold this up and
people know what it's about, we could hang it on the wall here that uh the
mayor and I get together and get a a plaque together and which I'll
take care of and uh you can hang it on and we we know that we are sister cities
with free Freeport, Illinois. Now just so you know what we gave them and what
I'm going to send
since we got together because they call themselves Pretzel City USA
and uh we are the first commercial pretzel bakery in thei in America. Uh we
made a a pretzel out of uh out of a pretzel
» pretzel dough. So this is what we made. But I am uh we are what can I say? uh
refining it to get it to be able to put on a plaque to send out.
So, we'll get one that uh it fits a plaque and is
a little bit flatter so to fit on the plaque. But anyways, that's that's
what's going on. We had a very nice meeting with uh
Tim Connor uh from Freeport, Illinois, and I plan on making another trip out
there at some point. and they're getting through this whole thing. They're
getting uh they have started up another pretzel bakery and uh so things are
moving forward that uh we can help each other down the road. So that's all I
have to say. Do you have anything else?
» Uh the activities are not going to don't end with the exchange of keys. Uh we
continue to work with the mayor uh to plan some activities for next year as
well during next year's pretzel fest. This year's pretzel fest is actually
this coming Saturday. Uh but that's not we need a little more time to get
organized with Freeport Illinois, but look forward to 2027 pretzel fest with
for additional activities.
» Give something to the mayor. Uh we have some they made some uh t-shirts out
already that had us called us uh yeah twisted sisters.
So, we we have a t-shirt and I'll give that to John to show you the next time
that comes in. >> Thank you.
» Thank you, Mayor. >> Thank you.
» Um, on another subject, uh, you may recall a few weeks ago that the, um,
Chief Smith from the War Education, I'm sorry, the War Emergency Services
Commission, my education days, I put those behind me now. Um so from west uh
made a presentation here uh talking about the uh and specifically the litz
uh fire company at that time. Uh and I could tell speak for myself. Um I
learned a lot of things on that particular presentation and one uh just
the sheer um the amazing staff what amazing volunteers that we have here in
our in our community. uh the amount of time and dedication they put forward uh
to protect the property and lives of our residents is just phenomenal. Uh the
amount of training they go through, incredible. Uh and the performance um
that chief shared with us their performance statistics uh and I just sat
here in awe listening to all that realize not realizing what a gem we have
here in our community that sometimes I think is just taken for granted. Um, the
other thing I think that stood out for me at that time is that this is a
organization, the fire company, that's funded almost entirely on public
donations. Um, not on tax dollars. Uh, these are volunteers, volunteers who
give so much their time to keep us community safe. Um, and yet over years
and years, it looks like the donations that come in from the community have
been fairly stagnant. Uh and while the donations have been stagnant, the cost
of those fire trucks and the equipment is just astronomical and increasing at
rates that we can't keep up with. Uh so realizing that international I'm sorry
national international firefighters day is actually May 3rd seemed like a
perfect opportunity to pass or issue a proclamation declaring uh fire
firefighters appreciation day firefighter appreciation week from May
3rd to May 9th and asking the public for two things. one to show appreciation and
thanks uh to all these volunteers who give so much of their time for us to
protect us. Uh and two um call upon our businesses and all our residents to see
if we can have an increased contributions and donations uh for these
folks. Um right now only about 25% of our community is making donations to our
fire company. Um and that just seems low to me and I wonder if we can't get that
number up. Uh so uh during firefighters appreciation week I'm call I hope
everyone takes the time to realize you know what a amazing company we have here
in litz and show them the appreciation that they deserve. Um and whether that's
just a a simple thank you uh or more importantly perhaps open your wallet up
and make those donations to keep these uh companies um doing the incredible
things that they do. It just so happens also coincidentally the annual fund
drive just kicked off this week. Uh so that wasn't coordinated. That's just all
coincidence. So it just seems like all the stars are aligning uh for us, this
community to make a push to help our fire company.
» Thank you. >> It was a great report tonight.
Going to have to ask the chief if he has anything else to say to us tonight.
Last thing I promise
couple items in the uh the monthly chief's report. Uh the next slide. So
back in January of this year, we had an outside and independent team of
accreditation assessors come and reassess our department to determine our
eligibility for reacredititation. So, uh, a little bit of history. We've been
accredited, uh, through the Pennsylvania Law Enforcement Accreditation Commission
of the Pennsylvania Chiefs of Police since February of 2008.
Uh, every 3 years, we're required to go through a reacredititation process where
that team comes out, they examine a lot of different things to make sure that
we're meeting the standards. uh back in 2022, so three years ago when
we got reacreditited, uh we achieved the highest tier of accreditation possible
in the Commonwealth of Pennsylvania, which is called premier status. Um at
that time, we were the the first and the only burrow police department in the
Commonwealth of Pennsylvania to achieve that top tier level of accreditation.
So back in January, the assessors had came back in. They examined uh over a
thousand different proofs of compliance that we'd offered them over the last
three years to establish our policies, our procedures. Uh the way that we're
doing business meets or exceeds the accreditation standards. They inspected
our facility. They interviewed staff members and officers. Um, out of those
approximately 1,000 roofs that we offered, they returned just one or a a
minor uh adjustment to show what they wanted to see. It was adjusted within a
matter of minutes. Um, so I think it's important to highlight that minus just
one small adjustment. A thousand different proofs that we offer them were
found to be fully compliant, meeting or exceeding the the accreditation uh
standards. So last week, our leadership team went uh before the the commission
of the Pennsylvania Chiefs. Uh unanimously, the the commission voted to
not only reacredit the agency, but also to reacreditit the agency as a premier
status. Um what I want to call out is that premier status designation
is only bestowed upon about 4% of all law enforcement agencies across the
Commonwealth. So depending on how you do the math and what you classify as a
police department, there's,00 to,200 police departments in the Commonwealth.
Uh and again only 4% of them have achieved that top tier level of
accreditation. So I wanted to call it out. It couldn't have been done without
the the work that our officers and our staff do every day. The support from the
community, the elected leadership and and staff and everything that that goes
into making the police department not only function effectively but
efficiently. So uh accreditation has been a long passion of mine. uh
maintaining this top tier level and getting reacredited again for another
three years at that level is is something that we're all very proud of
and I wanted to share that. >> Thank you and congratulations.
» Thank you again. >> Well, thank you.
» Yeah. So the last thing I had with this month's report, I I I just wanted to to
put out u looking back at quarter 1 of 2026, doing a a comparative analysis
that same first quarter of 25 and 24, looking at uh paid overtime and and some
of the internal strategies that we've implemented to uh
manage and and address the the overtime. Um if you look at the the last three
years, the first quarter of the last three years, that bar chart on the left,
you can see uh the data is visualized as far as uh the drastic reduction in the
overtime for that first quarter. Um the trend line indicates that the the bar
I'm sorry, the pie chart in the right, the the green shade uh represents
overtime that is fully or partially reimbursed back to the burrow. So about
44% of the first quarter overtime for this year those costs have been
recovered um minimizing obviously the the financial impact to the burough
taxpayer. So if you move on to the next slide it just details some of the key
outcomes. So if you look at first quarter 2026 compare that to first
quarter 2024 uh there's about an 80% reduction. You look at first quarter
2026, compare that to the same first quarter 2025, about a 73% reduction. And
then again to reiterate, about 44% of all that overtime cost has been
recovered back into the uh the burrow. Um and how we did it, um staffing
stabilization certainly played a key role in that. optimizing staffing. So
identifying where uh shortages in the staffing
on the schedule existed. Looking at ways to leverage uh other options within the
schedule to fill those shifts without the use of overtime, lateral movements,
temporary reassignments of functions on a short-term basis to fill those gaps.
Uh internal management prerogatives. A lot of the overtime and the the
employment and scheduling issues, if you will. um my hands are
tied by collective bargaining by the federal fair labor and standards act.
However, outside of that, there are management prerogatives that I can put
into place, internal policies, internal procedures, and uh management
prerogative decisions that we can put into place to um identify areas in which
the schedule can be optimized, looking at efficiencies to be less reliant upon
overtime and still ensuring the the adequate staffing that's needed to to
protect the burrow. And again, any good system needs some sort of monitoring and
tracking piece to it to make sure that the the policies, the initiatives that
we put forward are actually in doing what we intended them to do. So, um
monitoring um that with the the prerogatives, the the policies,
everything that we've put into place over the last year to ensure that we've
achieved the desired outcomes, coordinating with the burough leadership
to make sure that our decision-m internally aligns with council and the
burough's vision of of how the police department needs to be run from a
financial standpoint. And uh I wanted to share the statistics because I I think
it's important to highlight uh some of the efforts that have been done and show
kind of a short history of um you know where we've come in the last three
years. So that was it. I I know I spoke a lot tonight so I appreciate bearing
with me but if there's any questions on this please let me know or anything else
related to the police department.
» Any questions? just one the 44% of overtime where was recovered where how
was it recovered? >> Uh so uh pursuing grant streams um
examining current uh billing and cost sharing agreements that we have with
different entities providing police services. So those are kind of the two
big buckets if you will and uh again looking at
» data that accounts for almost half of the overtime that we can recover just
using those two strategies alone. >> Okay. Thank you.
» Yeah. And all this relates to one of our guiding principles. I keep bringing
those up. We safeguard public resources and act by fiscally responsible. Thank
you for helping us achieve one of the principles.
» Thank you. >> Thanks.
We have reports from our managing directors. Do either of you have
something to add? >> Uh I'll just say the runabout line is
moving forward. uh got the most recent uh estimate from Norfolk Southern and
provided that to our state grant consultant. Norfol Southern wants to go
to a pre-bid meeting and we just have to get the sign offs from the state to make
sure we're reimbursed for it. So at this point it's waiting to hear back from the
state consultants to see if they need any additional information. Um but it
could happen this year. Great. >> So that's great. Uh the other thing is I
want to put a plug that the Lancaster County's transportation improvement
program is going to be uh public on Friday which is May 1st. It'll be open
for public comment from May 1st to May 30th. I encourage everyone out there to
go comment and in support the uh the tip because right now there is about a
million dollars programmed for trail construction is my understanding. If you
look at it on Friday and for some reason it's not there, then your comment should
be why isn't there trail construction funding for let it on on the tip. Um but
that'll be up for public comment. They'll be voting on that in June and
that would be earmarked for uh 29 and 30. So, a few years out, so things are
starting to line up. Uh, hopefully things keep moving in the right
direction. >> Great, great news. Thanks for the
update.
» Um, on my reports, uh, page one, letter A, number five, I just wanted to call
your attention to that. Um, we have, uh, identified seven properties that are in
Warwick Township, uh, that dump into our sewer main. So starting in 2027 when we
do our flow reconciliation reports um those .eduus will be subtracted off of
our flow. It doesn't um have any impact on obviously the direct flow at the
plant. It's strictly financial um for those seven properties um being
deducted. >> Any idea what we're looking at
moneywise? >> I don't because it's it's on flow.
» Okay. >> So it'll it'll be in the flow rec
reconciliation reports. Okay. >> Um I wouldn't think it'd be substantial,
but it's something >> something.
» Yep. >> Um the other thing that is not in
report, but just want to make you aware of the week of May 18th, we'll be
completing our final stage of the Northern Interceptor
uh lining. That was the last part of our portion of the Langster County ARPA
grant that we got three years ago. Uh so May 18th that'll happen. will be lining
the sewer interceptor from basically Oak Street
um back right parallel to Litz Run Creek over to the fish hatchery is where we'll
be we'll be lining and then um the road will be closed too lit road will be
closed there for a day or two while they're doing that work. That's it.
Great. Hey, thanks for your report. Any questions on the reports?
If not, we'll move on to our second to last item. Is there any public comment
from anyone that's in the audience this evening?
No. Okay. Any I have a comment here to my
right. >> Um just want to uh bring up the April
30th regional partners meeting and Elijah are you able to give some quick
details on that? Um >> beyond that, it's uh the it's the
elected officials of the uh the three municipalities that make up our regional
comp plan are invited as well as the school district. It'll be hosted at
Elizabeth Township uh at 7 p.m. So that'll be Thursday night.
» And I presume a um number of council members will be attending. I don't know.
I do plan to go.
» Okay. Anything else? I think we have one last thing to do
this evening. I look for one more motion.
» Motion to adjurnn. Second. Second. All in favor?
Okay. Thank you. >> Second. Wait. Read the second.