November 21 – The next Chambersburg Borough Council meeting will be held on December 12 and the primary item on the agenda will be the approval of the 2023 budget.
Allen Coffman, borough council president, said, “There’s been very little input coming back in on that.”
Three will be a 1.5 mil increase for borough residents in 2023.
Pat Ryan of NewsTalk 103.7FM pointed out, “It’s all up to you. We can share the information all we want on the radio station. You’ve got to know who is your council person. If there’s something you’re upset about or something you’re curious about, we have some links for the council people, their emails, phone numbers if necessary.”
Click here to contact your council person: https://newstalk1037fm.com/representatives/
Coffman said, “There’s no one that’s come into borough hall to look at it (the budget). I don’t know what the readership has looked like at either the library or the law library.”
Most of the millage increase is going to the police department and police station.
Coffman said, “It’s not a big one considering what we’re looking at as an inflation rate for the US. I think the last I heard last week was 7.7 percent. It’s coming at us and I don’t know what this winter’s going to bring us.”
There have been a number of compliments on leaf removal in the borough by the two vacuum trucks.
Coffman said, “I’ve had four different people make comments, either in Council Chambers or personally to me or a phone call to me about how pleased they are with the leaf removal with the vac trucks coming around. We’ve got more of a schedule now. Before nobody seemed to know when they were coming.”
It’s done the same day the trash pickup is done in each ward.
Leaf pickup will continue until the weather gets bad – when snow and ice show up it will stop.
Council authorized purchasing six blocks of power last Friday.
Coffman said, “I sat in on what we would call the auction or the bidding for that, which was all over in 90 minutes. They bought six different blocks of power – huge amount of money that we’re talking about here. It’s an effort that’s done between our electric superintendents and our electric consultants, which are in Georgia. They started gathering the information at 9 o’clock. By 10:30 everything was literally signed, sealed, delivered.”
The price of electricity moves, quite literally, by the minute.
“It’s really a complex and fast-moving process to get those prices,” Coffman said. “It doesn’t stay the same for a day. It doesn’t stay the same for an hour, even.”
This purchase will take the borough out to the end of 2023 and prices will be locked in at this price.
Carolyn Barnes of Hamilton Township provided the Christmas tree in center square in Chambersburg and the lights were officially turned on Saturday.
Coffman said, “We thank her for such a beautiful tree.”
