Borough residents on county roads must wait for tree limb pickups
By Joanne Degnan, Managing Editor
ALLENTOWN The cost of police overtime and cleanup costs related to Hurricane Sandy still are being calculated, but an emergency budget appropriation will be needed to cover some of the expenses, Mayor Stu Fierstein said last week.
The Borough Council is expected to vote on that emergency appropriation at the Nov. 28 meeting once the storm-related expenses are tallied for police and Public Works overtime as well as the collection of tree limbs piled all over town.
”We’re coming to the end of the year, and the CFO would like to see these things closed out,” Mr. Fierstein told the council Nov. 14. “But they probably cannot be in 2012, which means the emergency (appropriation) will be made outside the cap and spread over a number of years.”
The state Division of Local Government Services has said emergency expenditures related to the hurricane are exempt from budget and levy cap laws and can be deferred to the following budget year or spread out over a period of years.
The mayor said he had met with representatives from the Federal Emergency Management Agency and is optimistic that, eventually, the borough will be reimbursed for some of its storm-related expenses.
”The question is how much of it will be returned to us, and how long will it take?” Mr. Fierstein said.
In the meantime, there will be municipal belt-tightening, he said.
”I’ve taken the action of limiting any future purchases for the rest of the year to only those expenditures that must be made,” Mr. Fierstein said. “We can try to offset the (storm-related) expenditures that we’re making under the emergency through the savings from other disbursements.”
Resident Wil Borkowski asked about the timetable for removing the piles of leaves, brush and tree limbs around the borough, particularly Main Street.
Mr. Fierstein said county roads, such as Main Street, were being handled by Monmouth County and municipal roads by the borough. However, the cleanup effort has been hampered by residents who have put tree limbs and other storm debris into their curbside leaf piles, he said.
”Public Works is working on leaf collection, but they will not touch any co-mingled (materials) so that the equipment doesn’t get damaged,” Mr. Fierstein said. “The tree and limb removal we’re taking care of with outside services.
”If there is co-mingled material, it will sit; it will not be collected as either leaves or as branches until the ‘claw’ is available from Robbinsville,” Mr. Fierstein said, referring to a specialized machine that can pull the limbs out of the leaf piles.
Mr. Fierstein said the county declined his offer to have the borough use its outside contractor to remove the tree limbs on county roads in Allentown as it already was doing for municipal roads.
”I apprised them they could reimburse us, and I’ll bring in more trash trucks, and they said, ‘no,’ they would take care of it themselves,” Mr. Fierstein said.
Residents living on county roads in the borough will have to try to be patient, he said.
”The county’s responsibility is the entire county, and what’s laying in the street here is not the same priority as the people in other parts of the county who don’t have homes and are in shelters,” Mr. Fierstein said.
Mr. Borkowski suggested the borough establish a central location, such as the sewer plant, where residents could bring their leaves and or tree branches.
”We’re not accepting any branches or leaves at the sewer plant because then you have to have one or two people down there watching where people put it,” Mr. Fierstein said, noting that would divert the two-person Public Works Department from its other storm-cleanup duties.
Setting up a central drop-off point also would require the borough to obtain a special transfer station permit, he said.
Council President Michael Schumacher noted another drawback to setting up a central drop-off facility is that borough residents who live on county roads will be bringing their leaves and tree limbs to the borough for disposal, not the county.
”The problem with us accepting them is, if they come from a county road, the county would have, otherwise, had to collect them,” Mr. Schumacher said. “We’ve eliminated the (county’s) task of collecting them, and now we’re stuck getting rid of them.”

