The Moore Township Board of Supervisors met Tuesday, March 4 to discuss reports, field treatment bids, an open space conservation easement, the Green Light-Go grant, issues with tax bills and listen to resident concerns regarding towing providers.
First, the following Klecknersville Rangers Volunteer Fire Company fire officers took their loyalty oath when swearing in: Engineer Chris Hunt; Fire Lieutenant Sean Luddeni; Assistant Fire Chief Adam Heckman; Assistant Fire Chief Erik Resch; Assistant Fire Chief Matt DePuy; Fire Chief John Hofacker; and Fire Captain Cody Henninger.
The Klecknersville Rangers fire police officers that also took their loyalty oath when swearing in included: Fire Police Captain Jason Harhart; Fire Police Lieutenant Ray Reeder; Brian Radcliffe; and Rafael Shkembi.
Next, candidates running for official county positions introduced themselves to the board and residents for the upcoming election.
Running for Northampton County Court of Common Pleas judge, Jeremy Clark is a local attorney and City of Easton solicitor with 15 years of legal experience including criminal defense, consumer bankruptcy, estate planning, family law, civil litigation, zoning and municipal law. Clark stated that he valued his time as both a court-appointed divorce master for the county as well as court-appointed counsel for criminal defendants that couldn’t afford to hire an attorney.
Clark’s website describes him as a family man and U.S. Army veteran, having served three combat tours as an infantry officer. Although Clark grew up in central Pennsylvania, he moved to Northampton County when he separated from the Army and has lived there for almost 20 years, currently residing in Easton with his wife and two daughters.
Clark is running on a cross-filing on both Democrat and Republican tickets and believes that Northampton County residents deserve judges that are hardworking, open-minded and committed to fair application of the law across the board, regardless of an individual’s background or identity.
Running for magistrate in Magisterial District 03-3-02 that encompasses Bushkill Township, Chapman Borough, Bath Borough, Wind Gap Borough, Stockertown and parts of Plainfield and Moore townships, Robert Kemmerer has been a lifelong Nazareth-area resident. Living in Bushkill Township for almost his entire life, he currently resides there with his wife and daughter.
Kemmerer began working in Northampton County courts as a probation and parole officer, transferring to the DUI division in 2007 and then pre-trial services in 2018. Kemmerer also took over as pre-trial services department director in 2020, worked with Northampton County to create a risk assessment program to reintegrate low-level offenders back into the community safely and was chair of the Criminal Justice Advisory Board. In order to run for political office, Kemmerer resigned from his position on Feb. 14 but currently serves on the Bushkill Township Environmental Advisory Council and as a trustee for the Nazareth Moravian Church.
In other business, Patrolman Thomas D. Roberts provided the police department’s monthly report for February, which included 275 total incidents, three written warnings issued, 20 traffic citations issued, two arrests for DUIs and seven reportable crashes.
Fire Police Captain Jason L. Harhart provided the January report for the Klecknersville Rangers Vol. Fire Co., which included 90 ambulance calls and 40 fire calls, consisting of one fire, four motor vehicle accidents, one fire police, two automatic fire alarms, 19 ambulance assists, three wires down, one tree down, one carbon monoxide alarm, one mutual aid call with Bath for a fire, three mutual aid calls with Lehigh Township for fires, one mutual aid call with Bushkill Township for wires down, one mutual aid call with Lehigh County for a fire and two mutual aid calls with Northampton for fires.
Public Works Director Craig Hoffman provided the board with the two bids that came in for this year’s field treatments at the recreation center and supervisors chose to award the bid to Hahn’s Lawns at a cost of $9,800 for three treatments. Hahn’s Lawns is the same vendor the township used last year; however, the treatments will cost $200 less than they did in 2024.
Hoffman also announced the street sweeping dates for spring, which will be March 24-28 and April 21-23, weather permitting.
Following, the board unanimously approved the Herschman open space conservation easement, which includes just over 17 acres of wetlands, woodlands and agricultural land in Moore and Bushkill townships. Since Bushkill has their own open space coordinator, the Land and Environmental Protection Board will work with Bushkill for endowments and soft costs. The estimated cost of the conservation is $5,200 but does not include attorney’s fees.
Township Engineer Kevin Horvath updated the board on the township’s pre-application for the PennDOT Green Light – Go grant application for upgrades to the township’s only existing traffic signal and the intersection of routes 512 and 946. The upgrade will include a larger signal bulb and video or radar detection to make the intersection more efficient.
Horvath stated that he has received positive feedback from PennDOT about the township’s chances of approval, but since the traffic signal pole has significant damage from being hit several times, PennDOT said the entire pole must be replaced, which will double the cost of the project. The project will now cost approximately $200,000 and the grant requires a 20% match, which will cost the township $40,000.
Township Manager Stephen Nowroski identified that there was an issue with the township’s tax collector mailing out tax bills, but they are working with the vendor to rectify the situation. Additionally, the township’s webpage has not gone live yet for residents to submit their tax payments online, but the webpage should be up and running by the end of the week.
Supervisors then unanimously approved a resolution to adopt the Emergency Management Plan and a resolution for the Traffic Signal Maintenance Agreement, which is a requirement for the Green Light – Go grant.
Last, Kristy Arthofer from Arthofer’s Towing & Transport voiced that she was surprised and disappointed that they had to reapply to be on the township’s towing rotation after a resolution updating the Towing Providers Policy was approved last month. Arthofer said she was not contacted to do so and was therefore not included in the list of towing providers that serve the township, which will cost a potential loss of two-thirds of her company’s business.
Arthofer also stated that she is unable to understand the rationale of approving towing companies from up to five miles outside the township’s radius as towing providers when her company has served the township for years and is located in Moore Township.
Arthofer respectfully asked that the resolution be amended to include Arthofer Towing & Transport because they have multiple tow trucks available to service several vehicles simultaneously, have previously collaborated well with the police and fire departments and including their business in the rotations reduces the time it takes for tow trucks to arrive on scene since they reside in the township, whereas other providers do not.
Additionally, the owner of Hoss Towing, which is located right outside the township in Bath, is a Moore Township resident and asked the board if his business could also be considered as one of the towing providers in the rotation.
Due to the Sunshine Act, the board will add discussion of the township’s towing providers to next month’s agenda.
The next Moore Township Board of Supervisors regular monthly meeting will be held on Tuesday, April 1 at 6 p.m. in the municipal building, located at 2491 Community Drive.
