This Thursday night, May 13, starting at 6:30 PM, the Board of Commissioners will hold its regularly monthly meeting, as well as hold our monthly Committee of the Whole meeting.
At this month’s Committee of the Whole Meeting, we will be discussing two ordinances that we have been working on aimed at improving quality of life issues in our community.
First up is Rental Ordinance (LU-01-121020) which seeks to issue licenses to landlords in the township. This Ordinance has two aims- to improve the life safety and quality of life for tenants living in apartment units in our communities, while aiming to hold landlords accountable for nuisance properties- buildings that result in the excessive call outs of first responders and law-enforcement, while causing difficulties for neighbors. Given the language of the ordinance, Thursday night’s discussion seeks to refer the proposed language of the ordinance to the Human Relations Commission to ensure that the ordinance does not result in uneccesary and unwanted profiling of future tenants.
Later in the agenda is an ordinance that seeks to regulate massage parlors (New Business, Item i). This is a direct response to issues we’re seeing on Jenkintown Road, and provides better language within our code to help the Abington Police Department further crackdown on human trafficking and prostitution issues that persist around some of these facilities.
Also on the Committee of the Whole agenda is changes to the public speaking rules. We’ve heard criticism of this, and we agree- a lot of agenda items are bypassing committee meetings and moving straight to the Board of Commissioners agenda, which does indeed make it difficult to take public comment on each agenda item. The policy is proposed to be amended as follows:
Consider a Resolution amending Section IV (b) (1) Public Comments for Public Meetings (b) (1) to establish that the Public shall have three (3) minutes to provide germane public comment on the agenda items to be voted upon. The Presiding Officer shall have the discretion to add time for a commenter during the public comment period of additional public comment, and repeal current (b) Committee of the Whole (1) language.
It should be clarified- 3 minutes per agenda item, in lieu of 5 minutes for all agenda items.
As always, I encourage you to come out and speak on any agenda items or any concerns that you may have. During the regular Board of Commissioners Meeting, public comment on agenda items occurs at the top of the agenda, and open public comment on anything (agenda or non-agenda) occurs at the end of the meeting. On the Committee of the Whole, public comment on agenda items occurs at the top of the agenda.