Residents who attend Coaldale council meetings often speak about issues impacting the borough’s quality of life.

Recent concerns have included unregistered vehicles littering their streets, blighted properties, tall grass or folks raising chickens in their yards.

By November, the borough hopes to have a code enforcement officer on board to address those issues, council President Claire Remington said during Tuesday’s meeting.

For the past few months, council has been in talks with Systems Design Engineering, Inc., of Leesport, about taking on a code enforcement officer.

Luis Negron, an SDE employee, will likely fill that role.

Before he’s hired, the borough and SDE needs to review some paperwork.

Negron will serve as both a code enforcement officer and rental inspector.

The latest quality of life issues were raised at Tuesday’s meeting by resident Dennis Vavra, who said he’s been seeing properties with accumulating garbage, high weeds and junked vehicles.

“We have them on our street. We have them in (borough) yards. We have them everywhere,” he said, referring to unregistered vehicles.

Remington said council planned to hire “a person to come in and enforce” the ordinance. The borough’s police department, she added, will be “revamped” to help with code issues.

In keeping with quality of life, borough Solicitor Robert Yurchak mentioned a zoning map showing areas where people are permitted to have chickens or other types of livestock.

The special use areas, he said, are open space areas.

There are only two such locations in the borough, he said.

“I have people constantly contacting me about that,” Remington said, referring to complaints about chickens and other animals.

She said when the code enforcement officer comes on board, they can check on places where the animals aren’t permitted.

In an unrelated matter, borough treasurer briefed council on what is shaping up to be the borough’s 2024 budget.

The borough is looking at $919,375 in revenues and $994,718.68 in expenditures.

“We have to close that gap. We will work on it. We are not done with our meetings,” Gonzalez said.

Council also motioned to appoint Joseph Krebs as the officer-in-charge of the Coaldale Police Department. Krebs was hired as a full-time officer in March, and previously worked for the department.