The Walnutport Borough Council reorganized Thursday night after appointing Aaron Kromer to the vacancy left by former President Matthew Newhard.

Kromer was sworn in by Mayor Wayne Weidner.William Turk was voted into the open presidency position."Congratulations to Aaron," he said after taking his place in the center of the board desk."You're going to be working like crazy. I've been on this board for 25 years. I served as president for 18 years before it went to Mr. Newhard. Now I'm back," Turk said.With a laugh, he rapped the gavel on the desk, "I just wanted to make sure this still works," he said.Councilwoman Nancy Treskot was nominated for the position of pro tem after Turk moved up in the ranks.Following the switching of council seats, the board opened three bids received for the borough's garbage collection.Tamaqua Transfer and Recycling, Advanced Disposal of Easton and County Waste and Recycling LLC all submitted proposals for a four-year contract.Tamaqua submitted the lowest bid with $544,500 for the next four years of trash and recycling collection.Tamaqua Transfer and Recycling President Larry Wittig was in attendance to answer questions."How stable is your staff," asked Councilwoman Patrice Hunsicker."We've had people putting trash in recycling bins and have had complaint after complaint. The staff is constantly changing over there," she said of the soon-to-expire contracted company."We just want you to understand your people are going to be under scrutiny at first," she said."We have 12 trucks and we have the transfer station in Tamaqua," Wittig said. "We stay within a 30-mile radius. We won't take on a place we can't handle."If there's a problem, call me and it won't be an issue again," he said, promising to hand out his personal cellphone number to the board.The board will look over the figures before awarding the contract to one of the three companies.Borough Engineer Jason Newhard updated the council on two ongoing borough projects, Lehigh Street and Canal Lock 24."The water main, installation and partial road widening for Lehigh will cost $99,641," he said."It's all coming out of grant money anyway," Treskot said.Lock 24's east side wall construction will beginning this week. According to Newhard, Eagle construction company is going to be on site Friday morning. Newhard said the company now has the materials to work the project and estimates the work will conclude on the previous timeline of early November."The company said they can spruce up the site for the Canal Festival in October," he said.The full amount of the reconstruction of the lock will cost $55,200, which will be paid through grant funding.Several seats on different boards remained vacant: the single vacancy board seat and two seats on the UCC and Property Maintenance.Six of the seven seats on the recreation board remained after Donald Eckhart submitted a letter of interest to fill a position on the board.The council told Eckhart his letter would be kept on file until more recreation vacancies were filled and a chain of command could be established.