ALLENTOWN – A public hearing has been scheduled for the Jan. 22 meeting of the Allentown Borough Council on an ordinance that seeks to establish a permanent Senior Citizen Advisory Committee in the borough.
The ordinance, if adopted, will create the new panel and eliminate Allentown’s Ad Hoc Senior Citizen Committee.
Council President Thomas Fritts and council members Angela Anthony, Rob Schmitt, Robert Strovinsky, John A. Elder III and Michael Drennan voted to introduce the ordinance following a discussion of the issue during the council’s reorganization meeting on Jan. 7 at Borough Hall.
Elder opened the discussion by saying, “I fully support codifying this on a permanent basis, but I need some more specificity.”
He suggested that the proposed Senior Citizen Advisory Committee be made up of different classes of appointees, including members who have skills and education in areas such as finance, geriatric medicine and senior exercise.
Fritts said he did not disagree with Elder’s point about naming individuals with specific skills and education, but he noted that officials are planning to move from an ad hoc committee to a permanent body made up of more individuals.
He suggested moving forward with the ordinance as proposed without specifying classes of members, giving the new panel a year to come together and then revisiting Elder’s idea.
“We want to get boots on the ground” to advance senior issues, Fritts said. “We can look at it in a year and possibly revise” the ordinance in the manner Elder suggested.
Fritts said the individuals who are appointed to the Senior Citizen Advisory Committee should be given the opportunity to define the skills they believe the panel’s members should have.
Schmitt added, “We don’t want to discourage any volunteers” by immediately having defined requirements for membership.
At the end of the discussion the council members voted 6-0 to introduce the ordinance as proposed, without defined classes of membership for the Senior Citizen Advisory Committee.
In other business at the reorganization meeting, council members recognized Olivia Newman, an Allentown High School graduate who is currently attending Lehigh University.
During 2017 and 2018, Olivia was the representative of the Allentown High School Greenbirds on the borough’s Environmental Commission.
According to a description of the extracurricular club, Greenbirds is for anyone who is interested in reducing their carbon footprint on Earth by reducing the amount of energy used at school and at home.
Olivia was thanked for her volunteer efforts and service on the Environmental Commission.