HELLERTOWN, MY HELLERTOWN

July 23th, 2003

In the good or bad old days, depending on your point of view, I wrote a regular column for one or the other local fish wrappers in which I was frequently critical of the Hellertown Borough Council and its bizarre Borough Manager, Jim Sigworth. In an entirely unexpect show of gumption about a year ago, Sigworth was fired and a new era began. Council itself has undergone some changes in personnel since I used to cover it. And lo and behold, it actually hired a Borough Manager, Charlie Luther, who is genuinely concerned for the welfare of the town and its residents.

A couple of weeks ago I attended my first council meeting in at least two years. Several observations seem apt. In the first place, President of the Council Tony Branco has grown a great deal in my estimation. I once called him, if I remember correctly, a mental midget. But now I am reminded of the old story of the boy who thought his father knew nothing, yet when he became an adult he was surprised by how much his father had learned. Free from Sigworth’s evil genius, Branco now seems to function intelligently, conduct a good meeting, and genuinely appreciate the problems that exist even if the solutions are not readily at hand.

My friend “Say No” Joe Gushen still sits on council, although he insists that this is his last term. He is still as didactic as ever and believes Hellertown was best about 100 years ago. But I genuinely think of him as a friend, albeit we probably disagree on everything from whether pigs have wings to whether police cars should have radios. I shall miss him.

Rich Stafferi greeted me as I entered the council chambers before the session began and kidded me about school taxes. Aha, I said, you ain’t seen nothun’ yet. I am hoping to raise taxes fifty percent next year, but may have to settle for thirty because of the new school board members. Fortunately, he understood that I was joking. Previously I have not been one of Stafferi’s admirers as council members, although I always found him a gentleman. In the session I attended, I was surprised that he too seems to be serving much better than I had expected.

This particular council meeting was organized by Charlie Luther as a brain storming session about setting priorities for the council in future sessions. Luther stood at the side of the room before a black board. Prior to the meeting, he had distributed questionnaires to the council members asking them to report what they thought good about Hellertown and what they thought bad. As each member reported his or her thoughts, Luther wrote them down on the board. Items that were mentioned by more than one member where checked again so that at the end of the session Luther had a list of principal concerns.

What struck me was that how little this last differed from the problems I was used to hearing about when I attended the Hellertown Borough Council on a regular basis. Sidewalks were still a problem. Traffic on Main Street is still a problem. Exposed electrical and telephone wires still are exposed. Zoning issues remain unsettled. There was still a failure to obtain grants that might be available to the Borough if applications were pursued more vigorously.

This is not to say that the solutions to these problems are easy, or even possible. Traffic is in the hands of PennDot. There has been talk of a bypass via Front Street for many years, but whether that is really a solution or even possible, practically or financially, remains in doubt. Overhead wires are prohibitively expensive to remedy. Sidewalks, on the other hand, are more a matter of Council sucking up its gut and enforcing existing ordinances or passing new ones that place the responsibility for repair on adjacent property owners with perhaps some relief in hard cases.

What was really amazing is the suggestion made several times in the course of the meeting by various council members that the ultimate solution was a merger with Lower Saucon. When I last attended council meetings, proponents of that idea would likely be tarred and feathered and run out of town on a rail. Now, practically everyone on a council seems to support the idea. This suggests that the old Hellertown animus toward Lower Saucon may be abating. Moreover, given the more enlightened attitude of a council, such a merger may in fact be possible. That it is desirable, at least from Hellertown’s standpoint, is certainly true.

In my experience, Lower Saucon never did have a great deal of animus toward Hellertown. Most Lower Saucon residents, I included, rather like Hellertown. It does maintain a small town atmosphere that is a welcome relief from more urban areas. Its people are friendly. Service in what stores exist is polite and friendly. The post office seems like an old friend. Even the banks make a point of giving service with a smile.

There has never been much enthusiasm for a merger with Hellertown in Lower Saucon. However, time has come for that attitude to change. There are considerable cost savings to be had. Does this community need two police departments, two water authorities, two highway departments and the like? Lower Saucon itself is a combination of formerly independent communities like Bingen, Leithsville and Steel City. The economics of combining those and other communities into one Lower Saucon was obvious. I think the notion of combining Hellertown and Lower Saucon is no less obvious.

In any event, I congratulate Hellertown’s Borough Council and its excellent Borough Manager Charles Luther for the progress they have made. We can look forward to their keeping up the good work.