Following the Slatington Borough Authority's recent request to borough council to dissolve the authority, many important topics were discussed at the June 23 meeting.

In regard to the June 16 special joint meeting between the authority and the borough council sewer committee, Vice Chairman Laurie Dart-Schnaufer asked authority members to voice their opinions.Secretary Darrell Baus said he had not gotten responses to some of his questions but that, "I think the council knows by now whose responsibility it was for running, maintaining and repairing a (sewer) plant."Meanwhile, solicitor Ed Healy said he thought council "seemed to accept that … you really are required almost to use this (H2O grant) money on nonemergency-type projects."In regard to that H2O grant, with which the authority has been making improvements to the sewer plant over the past several years, Healy reminded everyone that an extension to use its residual funds will likely be granted until June 30, 2015.He advised authority members to choose from the items that remained on the H2O's list of capital improvements and suggest to council which to cover.It was during a May 21 conference call with the DCED in Healy's office, at which one or two authority members, one council member and the engineer were present, that Healy said they were first told that leftover H2O grant money had to be spent only on the projects initially listed on the grant request when it was first submitted years ago.In other words, the money cannot be spent on things not on that initial list, such as one of the sewer plant's most serious and ongoing issues, digester problems. Those will likely fall on sewer revenue funds and cash on hand instead to fix, Healy said.Sewer plant operator Stefan Myers also said that, while the trickling filter is now back online as of June 13, a problem still exists with the clearance of its arms.Both Healy and Baus said they had not been aware of the problem.Resident George Moyer said that the authority minutes from past meetings are still not available on the borough website.He said the topic has been brought up various times at authority meetings and also at borough council meetings.Assistant Secretary Scott Schuckert agreed it has been several months since the topic was first brought up and that he has, in fact, been emailing the minutes to the borough secretary once they are approved but has no idea why they are not yet being put online.