Penn Forest Township looks to be the latest Carbon County municipality to take an official stance on the proposed 114-mile PennEast natural gas pipeline.

Supervisors on Monday night passed a motion requesting solicitor Thomas Nanovic to draft a resolution opposing the project.The motion came after little discussion by the board, but several public comments all supporting an opposing stance."I'm worried about the marketability of our properties," said Mark Zakutansky of the Boulder Run Property Owners Association. "We have one resident who has been trying to sell their home for over two years, and I'm just concerned about the impact this project could have."The pipeline is slated to carry natural gas through Luzerne, Carbon, Northampton and Bucks counties in Pennsylvania, and Hunterdon and Mercer counties in New Jersey.In Carbon County, affected municipalities include Penn Forest, Lower Towamensing, Towamensing and Kidder townships. The latter three have already passed resolutions opposing the project, as has Mahoning Township."We're doing the same thing most of the other townships have done," said Warren Reiner, Penn Forest supervisor chairman.Opponents of the project have cited environmental and safety concerns.Roy Christman, a Towamensing Township resident, has spoken out since the project was first proposed in 2014."This pipeline affects the entire county," he told Penn Forest supervisors on Monday. "What really bothers me is that it starts in the same place as an existing Transco pipeline and ends where that pipeline ends. But it blazes a whole new route with a permanent 50-foot right of way."If the timeline holds, PennEast plans for the pipeline to be in operation late in 2017.That wouldn't sit well, however, with Penn Forest resident Brendan Lee."I think the resolution opposing the project is in the best interest of the township and its residents," he said.The resolution could be up for a vote in May.In another action from Monday's meeting, supervisors accepted the resignation of administrative assistant Chasity Mosteller, effective March 9.Supervisor Christine Fazio said Mosteller was accepted into a nursing program, prompting her resignation.Vice Chairman Philip Shedaker said the township's park and recreation committee should have a draft of its rules and regulations available for supervisors after its April 20 meeting."Our new park can't officially be opened until that ordinance is passed, so we want to get that done," Shedaker said.The winter was another harsh one, but Reiner said he felt the road crew did a good job keeping up with the work."We had two trucks and one broke down on us a few times," he said. "Emissions are the biggest problem we have. It doesn't cost us anything to fix it, but it takes us down to one truck. Sometimes we're without it for up to four hours at a time, and if it breaks down on a Sunday, we can't get it fixed until Monday. All in all, I thought we did pretty well."Supervisors also noted its employees spent around 168 hours over the past three months responding to 79 Right to Know requests.A summary of all the requests was attached to Monday's agenda."It's something we're required to do and we do it, but these are hours coming from the girls here in the office, and it takes away from the things we have to get done in the township," Reiner said. "We're even considering hiring a part-time person to help with this. That is another expense to the township."