Hellertown Borough Council was shorthanded at Monday night\u2019s meeting but approved a handful of important items. Sidewalks remained a significant conversation topic to close out the month of June.<\/p>\n
339 Main Street Sidewalk Exemption\u00a0<\/p>\n
The longest discussion item of the night was an exemption request from Greg Peters, the owner of a property at 339 Main Street, who was on the agenda after a back-and-forth discussion related to a sidewalk and curb inspection letter he received from the borough\u2019s zoning office.<\/p>\n
Peters told council he received a letter months ago referencing Borough Ordinance 683 and directing him to have a sidewalk and curb inspection done. But by his reading of that ordinance, the inspection requirement at the time of a deed transfer falls on the property seller, not the buyer.<\/p>\n
Peters said he learned only by checking the agenda that the borough had conducted a sidewalk inspection of his property on June 12. He pushed back on several findings he saw cited in the inspection documentation, including the curbing condition, hairline cracks in the concrete, vegetation in the expansion joints and an ADA ramp at the property line.<\/p>\n
He noted that the ramp, which is outside a former dental office originally established at the property in 1976, predates modern ADA truncated-dome requirements by decades and, in his view, is not required to be retrofitted unless other changes are made to the work. Truncated domes are tactile warning surfaces featuring small bumps which are used to alert visually-impaired individuals to transitional zones between sidewalks and streets.<\/p>\n
Zoning and Codes Officer Terri Fadem told council the borough\u2019s standard sidewalk and curb inspection process\u2013the one she would have run during a deed transfer\u2013flagged failed sections of curb in two areas, an ADA ramp that does not meet current truncated-dome standards and patched concrete sections that are uneven. She said she went out at the borough manager\u2019s direction so council would have current photographs in hand for the discussion.<\/p>\n
\u201cIf this had been done prior to the sale of the unit, I would have failed it,\u201d Fadem said.<\/p>\n
According to Northampton County property records, Greg and Deborah Peters purchased the property from Gary and Linda Peters in August 2025 for $1.<\/p>\n
Councilman Larry O\u2019Donnell added, \u201cIf we missed it or it didn\u2019t get done at the proper timeline, then we revert to a different kind of criteria. (It) would be a complaint ordinance or complaint-triggered inspection, which didn\u2019t happen, so I don\u2019t think we need to pursue this. Going back, it\u2019s digging up old history. We missed it.\u201d<\/p>\n
After many minutes of discussion, O\u2019Donnell moved to grant the exemption on the basis that the deed-transfer inspection was not properly executed in front of the sale and that the property had not generated a complaint. The motion was approved.<\/p>\n
Police Pension Amendment Adopted<\/p>\n
The headline policy item was the adoption of Ordinance 862, which amends Chapter 55 of the borough code to allow Hellertown to offer the optional benefit created by Pennsylvania\u2019s Act 49 of 2024\u2013the police pension service credit buyback law that took effect after Gov. Josh Shapiro signed it in 2024.<\/p>\n
Under Ordinance 862, full-time Hellertown police officers who have satisfied the pension plan\u2019s vesting requirements gain the option to purchase up to five years of pension service credit for prior part-time or full-time police service performed in a police department.<\/p>\n
The amount due is computed by multiplying the normal cost rate for the Hellertown pension plan\u2013capped at 10 percent\u2013by the officer\u2019s average annual rate of compensation over the first three years of service with the Hellertown department, then multiplying that product by the number of years and fractional years of creditable prior service, with interest at 4.75 percent compounded annually from the date of initial entry into full-time service to the date of payment.<\/p>\n
The ordinance carries the same statutory limitations baked into Act 49. Officers can\u2019t double-dip on years they\u2019re receiving or entitled to receive credit for from another pension fund, and the combined total of prior police service and credited military service cannot exceed five years.<\/p>\n
The application process under the ordinance routes officers through the borough manager\u2019s office for verification of years of service, requires a copy of the prior service record signed by a police chief, municipal manager, clerk or chief financial officer, and is then reviewed by the borough\u2019s finance manager and borough actuary. The review process may take up to 90 days. Approved applicants have 30 days from approval to submit the required payment to the police pension fund managers.<\/p>\n
O\u2019Donnell, who has been working on the borough\u2019s police pension framework, said council\u2019s pension board held what he called a \u201cvery positive\u201d meeting in May focused on building a more data-driven contribution plan going forward and separating pension contribution discussions from broader compensation discussions. He said more updates will come after the next quarterly meeting.<\/p>\n
The motion carried unanimously.<\/p>\n
Administrative Assistant Resignation Accepted<\/p>\n
Council accepted the resignation of the borough\u2019s administrative assistant, effective June 8, and authorized advertising the position.<\/p>\n
Cover letters, resumes and completed employment applications should be sent to Hartranft at c.hartranft@hellertownborough.org. The application deadline is June 26.<\/p>\n
Other News & Reports<\/p>\n
Hartranft said the Hellertown Borough Pool opened for the summer last Saturday, June 13, with what Hartranft called a huge attendance day and only minor first-day glitches. She thanked pool staff for stepping in across roles to make the opening a success.<\/p>\n
Police Chief James Baitinger reminded residents that National Night Out 2026 falls on Tuesday, Aug. 4.<\/p>\n
The chief also highlighted a recent cooking oil theft that occurred in Hellertown. He said thieves typically use a rental truck with a pumping system to extract used cooking oil for resale as biofuel. In this case, the truck had a malfunction during the operation, spilling oil in the area of Main and High streets. The department is now working with neighboring jurisdictions that are investigating similar thefts in the area.<\/p>\n
The next Hellertown Borough Council meeting is scheduled for Monday, July 6 at 7 p.m. at Borough Hall.<\/p>\n","protected":false},"excerpt":{"rendered":"Hellertown Borough Council was shorthanded at Monday night\u2019s meeting but approved a handful of important items. Sidewalks remained…\n","protected":false},"author":2,"featured_media":223623,"comment_status":"","ping_status":"","sticky":false,"template":"","format":"standard","meta":{"footnotes":""},"categories":[14],"tags":[5196,153,155,154,16129,94190,204,3401,28238,206,61116,82,10496,209],"class_list":["post-223622","post","type-post","status-publish","format-standard","has-post-thumbnail","category-bethlehem","tag-ada","tag-bethlehem","tag-bethlehem-headlines","tag-bethlehem-news","tag-borough-council","tag-cooking-oil","tag-hellertown","tag-inspection","tag-pension","tag-police","tag-pool","tag-property","tag-sidewalk","tag-theft"],"_links":{"self":[{"href":"https:\/\/www.newsbeep.com\/us-pa\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/posts\/223622","targetHints":{"allow":["GET"]}}],"collection":[{"href":"https:\/\/www.newsbeep.com\/us-pa\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/posts"}],"about":[{"href":"https:\/\/www.newsbeep.com\/us-pa\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/types\/post"}],"author":[{"embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/www.newsbeep.com\/us-pa\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/users\/2"}],"replies":[{"embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/www.newsbeep.com\/us-pa\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/comments?post=223622"}],"version-history":[{"count":0,"href":"https:\/\/www.newsbeep.com\/us-pa\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/posts\/223622\/revisions"}],"wp:featuredmedia":[{"embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/www.newsbeep.com\/us-pa\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/media\/223623"}],"wp:attachment":[{"href":"https:\/\/www.newsbeep.com\/us-pa\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/media?parent=223622"}],"wp:term":[{"taxonomy":"category","embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/www.newsbeep.com\/us-pa\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/categories?post=223622"},{"taxonomy":"post_tag","embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/www.newsbeep.com\/us-pa\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/tags?post=223622"}],"curies":[{"name":"wp","href":"https:\/\/api.w.org\/{rel}","templated":true}]}}