Lansford Borough Council appointed ARRO Engineering as its zoning officer, as it works on a job description for a code enforcement officer.

The borough’s zoning and code enforcement officer, Jim Dean, resigned, giving council only a few weeks to fill the position.

Council planned to hash out a job description at the next committee meeting and then advertise the position, but on Tuesday moved ahead with advertising the code enforcement job immediately.

The position will be full-time, and not part-time as it was with Dean, and offer benefits for the employee only.

Council also discussed whether or not to hire an assistant, deputy or secretary to help with the paperwork.

They also questioned whether they need to hire another person just to handle rental inspections. The borough has about 740 rental units, which require inspection every two years under the borough’s rules.

“If we have an officer full-time, is he going to be able to do the rental inspections, plus answer complaints and everything else that goes with the position,” asked Council Vice President John Turcmanovich.

Complaints take time, because so much needs to be documented, plus the inspection, travel and follow-ups, he said.

“There’s so many complaints,” Councilwoman Gwyneth Collevechio said. “We have to address this the right way. We have to make this work.”

Markovich wasn’t sure that rental inspections needed to be a full-time job, but Councilman Bill Chuma disagreed due to the number of rental properties the borough has.

Chuma suggested hiring a company to do the inspections, but Councilman Martin Ditsky said the borough tried that before with Lehigh Valley Inspection Services and Barry Isett Associates.

The borough received complaints that the firm sent different inspectors each time and a new person would find additional things wrong on a re-inspection, Ditsky said.

“We need consistency in the process,” he said.

Chuma then suggested hiring someone to do rental inspections, and pay them per inspection. The rental fee of $100 that the borough collects now would cover rental inspections, Wendy Butrie, borough secretary/treasurer, said.

Collevechio said they could ask a potential code officer if he or she could do both, but no one was sure if that was feasible.

Council decided to hold off on action on a rental inspector and continue to discuss the possible position.

Council did move ahead with a zoning officer as the borough is anticipating applications, and applications are automatically approved in 30 days, if not acted upon, Markovich said.