Spring City municipal roundup

There’s a new “chief” in town.

Officer James Wyatt of the Spring City Police Department has been named “officer in charge” in Spring City until a permanent successor to police chief Deidre Sherman is named. Sherman gave her resignation to the council in May. Her tenure as chief will not officially end until July, but she has effectively retired. Sherman is using vacation time to cover her absence in these last few weeks of her career. 

The Spring City council adopted an “Internal Affairs and Investigations” section into the borough’s police manual. According to borough manager Dennis Rittenhouse, the borough was advised by a risk management agent from an insurance company that such a policy should be adopted. Rittenhouse told the public the council is adopting this policy to have “something more standardized in the future.” Questions about the policies governing the police department’s internal affairs were raised earlier this spring during the controversy over the termination of former borough police officer Jamal Lewis.

Council member James Burns pointed out several grammatical and semantically incorrect phrases in the new policy, but Council President Louis DiGuiseppe reassured his Burns that those errors would be fixed before the policy went in the book. “The teeth of it were there,” DiGuiseppe said. Apparently reassured, Burns moved to adopt the policy and the new code passed unanimously.

The council also addressed a “Right to Know” policy at the Monday evening meeting. According to Rittenhouse, the policy presented was simply a way to “avoid conflict of interest” concerning the availability and release of information within the city. This policy also passed unanimously.

The Spring City Library Building Project was also passed unanimously after the council took a short executive session to discuss the lease on the project.

After the motions were passed, James Burns brought to the council’s attention the increasing problem with traffic on Church Street and Bridge Street. Large trucks from Penn Organic have been using the road, as have buses and cars of those visiting the Pennhurst Halloween attraction. 

“We are concerned,” said Burns. 

Community and council members are worried not only about the wear and tear on the road, but also about traffic in Spring City. President DiGuiseppe also remarked on the intoxicated state of many of those attending the haunted house attraction and expressed his concern for the safety of residents.

Options discussed included limiting commercial traffic to local deliveries only, returning the road to its previous status as a one-way street, and temporarily closing the road. Council member Michael Hays made the point that if the council decides to limit the commercial traffic, it has to find the staffing necessary to enforce their new policy. DiGuiseppe asked the council members to contemplate ideas on the matter and promised to revisit it at a later date. 

Due to the holiday in July, the month’s council meeting will be held on Tuesday, July 5 at 7:30 p.m. in Borough Hall.