Politics & Government

New Emmaus Manager Plans to Reinstate Safety Committee

Shane Pepe, who took part in his first meeting as Emmaus Borough Manager Monday night, asked council for permission to get started on setting up a borough safety committee.

The new Emmaus Borough Manager hit the ground running at Monday night’s meeting, expressing his desire to get a borough safety committee up and running by March 1.

explained that having the committee in place would ultimately bring financial savings to the borough in a number of ways.

First, he said, after the committee is operating for one year, the borough can apply for state certification, which translates into an automatic 5 percent reduction in borough workers’ compensation insurance rates.

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Plus, Pepe said, Emmaus has a high rate of workplace injury among borough employees, and this is an issue that the safety committee would be able to address and potentially help to control.

Councilman Mike Waddell urged council to take action on Pepe’s request at Monday’s meeting, rather than sending the matter to council’s Public Safety Committee for review and recommendation. “If it is something that we all know we should do, why don’t we move this forward? I will make that motion just to get some discussion going here,” he said.

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Councilman Brent Labenberg said that he remembered that the borough did have a safety committee in the past and that the borough did save money on workers’ comp rates, although he wasn’t sure what had happened to the committee or why it no longer existed. The potential 5 percent reduction in the borough’s workers’ compensation rate alone was enough for him to support Pepe’s request, he said.

Council unanimously authorized Pepe, by a vote of 7-0, to take the steps needed to establish a borough safety committee.

Pepe, who officially took over for former Emmaus Borough Manager on Jan. 23, .


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