So many invited guests and public commenters spoke at Walnutport's council meeting Thursday that it took nearly an hour-and-a-half before monthly agenda meeting topics could be discussed.

The first two guests spoke about the borough's hopes of refinancing.Senior Managing Consultant Jamie Schlesinger, of Public Financial Management Inc., a nationwide independent financial adviser, and managing partner Kevin Reid, of King, Spry, Herman, Freund & Faul, a law firm based in Bethlehem, presented council plans for the refinancing of its loan and additional new money for the borough.Schlesinger apologized for not having been able to attend the borough's workshop meeting last Thursday, during which he said council had discussed the refinancing in detail.He then said that, "To summarize, we were able to take proposals and have you going to refinance your two existing bank loans and structure the debt in a way to keep your overall new payments essentially the same as what you would have paid based on our original budget, from the original issue, after borrowing additional new money for your projects."We structured this transaction to make it work for your budget for next year," he said. "The total borrowing would be $2,763,000. The interest rate on the loan through Neffs would be 2.73 percent for five years, and then it would reset at a variable rate. But it has a cap rate, which is lower than what you had before, so overall you're going to save money. The structure itself makes everything work in the budget."Council voted unanimously to proceed with the proposal.Afterward, Mike Petruski, of E-Mex Power/Provisions presented the council with two proposals. The first was for a reduced electricity rate for the borough; the second was for the possible purchase of LED lights.Next Nancy Treskot, Walnutport's unofficial representative at peer-to-peer group meetings, during which Slatington, Walnutport and Washington Township gather to discuss the possibility of forming a regional recreational organization, spoke.She asked for reassurance of the borough's willingness to keep pursuing the possibility of forming such an organization. President Matthew Newhard and other members said they were committed and later made a motion to make Treskot its official resident representative at the meetings. In addition, Newhard was officially made its public official representative and Councilwoman Patrice Hunsicker its alternate.Finally, Playground President Brian Filchner discussed the need for dugout repair.Afterward, council moved forward on its regular agenda items. However, much time was spent discussing the yearly budget when Hunsicker asked questions regarding why 14 items were over budget on the July 2014 Profit and Loss Report.