Lansford Borough Council approved a motion to increase the hourly wage for a part-time borough worker from $11 to $16 an hour.

“We spoke to a few people, some interested in the job, but not for the current rate,” Councilman William Chuma explained. “We need to raise it to at least $16. Other places like Walmart and McDonald’s all pay that much.”

Council is also now accepting applications for part-time workers for the summer to help with maintenance such as lawn care and other duties as needed. Candidates should have a driver’s license. Contact Lansford Borough at 570-645-3900.

In other business

• Council announced that they had no bids for street materials that had been advertised. Council will advertise a second time for bids for Resolution 2022-04 Bituminous Materials needed for road projects.

• Council approved Lansford Alive’s request to hold “Music in the Park” events in Kennedy Park, with dates to be announced later.

• Solicitor Robert Yurchak requested that council allow him to make changes to the handicapped ordinance to make it comply with state law.

“Too often what we are getting is that our ordinance says one thing, the state law says another,” Yurchak said. “I just want to make it consistent.”

Council approved the measure to allow Yurchak to update the ordinance.

• Council approved an estimate from A&H Equipment for repairs to an extension tube on the borough’s 1994 Vactor, a piece of equipment usually used in sewer cleaning. The estimate is for $3,226.53.

“The extension pipe can’t be repaired,” Councilman William Chuma said. “You can’t just put a patch on it because it won’t extend or retract as it should. It needs to be replaced.”

• Council scheduled a free communitywide yard sale to be held May 14 and 15 to coincide with Coaldale’s yard sale the same dates.

• Council adopted a resolution to apply for a 2022 Green­ways Trails and Recreation Program for improvements at Kennedy Park in the amount of $110,000.

“The asphalt side is what will be done,” Council President Bruce Markovich explained.

The new sidewalk would 4 feet wide, handicap accessible and made of concrete.

• Council authorized the Panther Creek Valley Foundation Inc. to award bids for the No. 9 Mine Improvements Project. This resolution is for the mine museum building itself.

“We did an LSA grant two years ago,” Markovich said. “They opened their bids on their different projects. They had to make some changes on the bids because they did not have enough money in their LSA Grant to cover all the costs. They sent a resolution outlining the changes they had to make.”

• Council is looking for some financial advice.

“We have quite a few accounts here,” Markovich said. “We have one account with about $235,000 in it getting 1/10 of 1 percent interest. We have another account with $300,000 getting 3/4 of 1 percent interest. We also have half a million dollars in railroad money getting 1.2% on that.”

Council voted to advertise a request for proposals for a consultant to help the borough develop some kind of safe and secure investment strategy for those funds.

• Council approved a motion to apply some of the 2022 Community Development Block Grant money to tear down 336 W Patterson St., the former Horvath residence.

• Council made a motion to hire Cloud Services at a cost of $200 to review the borough’s computer programs and consolidate them.

“We want to see if we can get all the computer programs for sanitation, sewer transmission, moving permits, and everything else in our computers and put them all into one program,” Markovich said.

Cloud Services currently provides IT support for the borough, but is not in a contract.

• Lansford Borough Secretary Wendy Butrie gave the tax collector’s monthly report. So far, for the month of April up to April 11, they have received $119,527.07 in taxes.