MAHANOY PLANE - Gilberton Borough Council held a short regular meeting on Thursday, which included a short discussion on hiring a new code officer.
"Where do we stand on the code enforcement officer?" Councilman Michael VanAllen asked.
"Mary Lou (Hannon) is our acting code enforcement officer," council President Daniel Malloy said of the borough mayor. Malloy added that Magisterial District Judge Christina Hale is aware of Hannon's status.
"I'm looking to hire a code enforcement officer, part-time" VanAllen said.
"Sounds good to me. It's working right now, so it's not an emergency situation," Malloy said. "I'm glad you brought it up, Mike."
Solicitor Karen Domalakes said, "I think you should get a part-time code enforcement officer. I think you had a lead on one, and I can give you a lead on another one. At the last meeting, every single thing that came up was code enforcement."
Malloy said he hopes to have all council members attend the July workshop, which is held before the regular meeting, to discuss the subject and move forward.
On Friday, Hannon said she has been the acting code enforcement officer without pay for about six months.
"We had a borough employee doing the job and decided he didn't want to do the code enforcement," Hannon said. "It has been some time since we've had one."
Hannon said a code enforcement officer has much work in trying to do the job.
"There is a lot to it. I've sent so many letters out," she said. "I have a citation on high grass filed that is pending. I'm waiting on that. Our ordinances are so deep that you could be in court every week. You have to look at different things, like who owns the property and how to contact them. I don't have access to a lot of things like police officers have. It's different when the person actually resides in the borough, but when you have absentee landlords, they're very hard to find. You really have to do some digging and making phone calls and checking other properties in the county they may own to try to locate them. It takes some searching."
"I know there are some good code enforcement officers that I've heard about to consider," Hannon added.
Hannon said that her experience working as a code officer has interested her in supporting a quality of life ordinance in the borough.
"We talked about the quality of life ordinance before and Karen (Domalakes) has said we have everything on the books already, which we do, but the only thing is that it would be a lot quicker to enforce them," Hannon said. "After doing this for some time now, I think I may push for this at the next meeting. It would be a lot easier for me to knock on a door and clean up this yard in so many days, and if you don't, you're going to get a fine."
In other business, Malloy and VanAllen said the borough employees have kept up with the outside work.
"Our borough workers are doing a great job," Malloy said.
"I think they're doing a fantastic job," VanAllen said.
"They're keeping the town cleaned up. They're keeping up with the potholes," Malloy said. "There is still some work to get done, but we're getting there."