Tamaqua Borough Council held a public hearing regarding the Community Development Block Grant Program. Representative from Schuylkill County and from Mullin and Lonergan Associates were on hand to answer any questions. No other members of the public attended the hearing.

According to a report provided, the borough anticipates receiving $126,937 in funds.

Those funds “must be used for activities that benefit low- to moderate-income persons or to eliminate slums and blight.”

Borough council members will need to choose the projects for which to use the funds by the August meeting.

Councilman Brian Connelly expressed a desire to form a task force to focus on a problem with blighted properties in the borough.

“We’ve been finding a lot of blighted property that are slipping through the cracks in the way of Realtors trying to sell blighted properties ‘sight unseen,’ and basically we just have the same problem that just keeps happening over and over and over again,” Connelly said.

“West Street, the fire building; it was sold, but now we’re stuck with it because they don’t have any money. I could go on and on and on, it’s just crazy.

“We seem to have some Realtors taking advantage of the market and at trying to sell anything they can. When they do a title search, there should be some way to find out if a there were any violations on the property. If it’s true lien, that would be found in a title search. But a lot of times, if it’s a violation, if it’s a water bill, if they don’t contact the local municipality to find that out, it just goes by the wayside and the transaction takes place. I’m not sure how to go about it, but I would like to put together a little think tank and see.”

Several council members will work with Connelly to discuss it.