Emmaus Borough Council Meeting Short and Sweet

Editor’s Note: This article has been updated to more accurately reflect the events of Monday night’s council meeting. We incorrectly referred to an unofficial memo as an official report.

A private memo distributed to Emmaus Borough Council weeks ago by Borough Manager Craig Neely got a mention at last night’s short council meeting.

The memo consisted of Neely’s musings regarding property tax. In the correspondence, Neely uses the way people are charged for water as an example of a more equitable approach to taxes.

“With water, people pay for what they use,” Neely said in a telephone interview on Tuesday. “The write-up was just a food-for-thought kind of thing. It was an interesting philosophical exercise.”

Councilman R. Erick Reinhard praised Neely at the Aug. 1 meeting for “thinking outside of the box.”

But Neely emphasized that he was not advocating changing anything about the way businesses is conducted in the borough. The correspondence was merely a mental exercise, he said.

Also at last night’s council meeting, Council Vice President Brian Holtzhafer announced that two 2012 budget workshops have been scheduled for August 31 and September 28 at 7 p.m.

The entire regular meeting lasted only about 40 minutes. In fact, Councilman Mike Waddell tried to cancel yesterday’s meeting at the July 18 session. He wanted to save staff time and the expense of putting together informational packets for council when there wasn’t much on the agenda.

But the meeting went on, thanks to a tie-breaking vote July 18 by Mayor Winifeld Iobst. 

A borough resident actually thanked members last night for doing their civic duty by conducting the meeting as scheduled, and allowing regular community input. 

The next regular council meeting is scheduled for August 15.