Coopersburg Council Talks Land Reassessment While Assessing Upper Saucon's Rail to Trail Involvement

Coopersburg Borough Council wants you to know that if you see a white van driving slowly around your neighborhood, you may want to hold off calling the police. The has begun in Coopersburg.

“Within the next two weeks they’ll be in our area,” said borough manager Dawn Kresge. “They’ll be in the area for about 60 days, then they’ll be doing aerial views.” The council passed around a photo of the white vans which we will be coming to Coopersburg to reassess property taxes, as much as 100 percent higher than the previous assessment.

At the, the council discussed what property reassessment will mean to residents. “Homeowners will end up stuck paying higher bills,” said council member Richard Nalichowski at that meeting. Nalichowski represented the borough at the Feb. Council of Governments meeting held in Lehigh County.

Where Coopersburg stood regarding the controversial Rails to Trails program was on the mind of audience members, including former Mayor Jonathan Mack.

“I wanted to get a feel as to when you might start construction,” Mack said.”Have you looked into what the costs might be?”

“We’re waiting until the Upper Saucon portion is done,” replied council president Gary Hovis.

Uppers Saucon’s involvement in Rails to Trails has been a highly debated topic over the past several months. Last month’s Rail to Trail included Tom Beil, Upper Saucon Township manager. In the past, both Lower Saucon and Coopersburg to have full participation of Upper Saucon in the meetings. While Beil’s presence was appreciated, Coopersburg is still waiting for action.

Hovis went on to say that the Coopersburg trail could not function on its own. “We have no parking area, and we have half a mile. Upper Saucon wraps completely around us.”

Mack suggested opening the Coopersburg portion as soon as possible. “Once you have sections of the trail open, it puts pressure on the other towns to get theirs open.”

Council members agreed. “We need to start working on this and get serious,” Hovis said, “but until Upper Saucon gets serious on theirs we really can’t.” The board did consider beginning cost analysis and phase one work on the trail, including cutting and draining the area, but no formal motion was made.

Towards the end, the council moved forward on the decision to test the the council discussed the functionality of an electronic traffic billboard usually displayed on 309.

For a month the council has been in talks with the developer of the sign who promised that the board would display an AMBER Alert in the event of a missing child in return for sign placement in Coopersburg.

The developer claimed that the AMBER Alert function was built into the sign, a claim that Police Chief Daniel Trexler contested. “It’s never been on since day one,” Trexler said. “I’ve been up there more than once and it (an alert) was not on that board.”

The council agreed to find out when the next test of the AMBER Alert system was and document the functionality of the billboard. “Let’s find out when it was,” said Hovis, referring to the last amber alert test, “and find out when the next test is.”

The next Coopersburg Council meeting will be March 22 at 7pm.