Tamaqua Borough Manager Kevin A. Steigerwalt advised council Tuesday that some of Tamaqua’s water and sewer customers have asked about the Low Income Household Water Assistance Program offered by the Office of Community Services of the Commonwealth of Pennsylvania.

“Basically, it’s assistance from the commonwealth toward paying people’s overdue water and sewer bills,” Steigerwalt explained. “I have been making a few phone calls to find out more about this. From what I gather so far, we just simply say that we are going to participate, and the rest is handled by the commonwealth. The individuals have to apply either online or on paper form. If they qualify, they get assistance toward their bills.”

The state would make the payments directly to Tamaqua Borough.

Steigerwalt still needs to finalize the details with the commonwealth before residents can begin filing their applications.

Community development

Ann Marie Calabrese, Director of Community Development, mentioned that the Community Revitalization and Improvement Zone) will hold a public meeting at 6 p.m. Monday in the Tamaqua Municipal Building. The meeting will be held even though the borough office will be closed because of Presidents Day.

The meeting is to officially decertify six properties located on Pine Street and East Mauch Chunk Street.

“It’s basically to get these six parcels out of CRIZ to proceed with a grant,” Calabrese explained, “because that is a stipulation of the grant is that the six properties cannot be in CRIZ.”

The properties are advertised on the Borough’s Facebook Page at https://www.facebook.com/TamaquaBorough. The properties are at 0, 27, 29 and 33 E. Mauch Chunk St., and 10 and 18 Pine St.

Fire department

Tamaqua Fire Chief James R. Connely submitted the report for January 2022. The fire department responded to 24 incidents including eight chief actions, four box alarms, three automatic fire alarms, two hazmat issues, two reports of trees down, and one each moving vehicle accident, utility issue, EMS, and special assignment.

They also offered 57 mutual aid events in Summit Hill, West Penn, Walker Township and Pottsville. Total man hours for January were 1,160.78, mostly for in-house training, fundraising, maintenance, and 244.28 hours for on-scene incidents.

Police

Tamaqua Police Chief Michael J. Hobbs reported that $2,882.02 in fees and $3,549.33 in fines were collected in January 2022, for a total of $6,431.38, which was deposited into the borough’s general fund.

For January, police responded to 212 complaints, issued 77 traffic citations, two nontraffic citations, made seven criminal arrests, and issued 62 parking tickets.