In their last meeting for the year, the Borough of Macungie officially adopted the 2013 budget which includes a 32-hour police officer against the wishes of some council members and the mayor. Council also adopted a (revised) policy for the borough Facebook page designed to monitor comments on borough posts.

Mayor Rick Hoffman was present Dec. 17 when council adopted the budget as presented from their preliminary adoption two weeks ago. Vice President Greg Hutchison asked Hoffman directly if he still stuck to his determination for 25 shifts a week. The mayor answered he would only consider raising it to 27 if the allowance for the 32-hour officer did not appear in the budget.

Hoffman compared the borough's police department to that of Alburtis, saying of Macungie, "We can still do what we've been doing with 25 shifts."

The mayor accused council of going "around his back" in this as in other matters by allowing the 32-hour officer to remain in the budget.

Council member Debra Cope reminded Hutchison the approval of the budget is separate from approval and hiring of a new 32-hour officer. It simply allows for the funds. Voting a new officer in is another matter for council to decide on in the future. It was Cope who made the motion to approve the budget as presented Monday evening.

President Jean Nagle also voted against the budget as adopted; she had moments before suggested removing the 32-hour officer and medical coverage and adding instead 32 hours to the part-time budget slot. This would funnel $11,000 in the capital reserve, something Nagle noted would not happen otherwise.

"I think we have a way to get some capital in this [budget] and we're not doing it," Nagle said.

Chris Becker expressed himself as "extremely disappointed" with council for not making these suggestions in September.

"I'm offended by this," Becker said. "There's a lot of logic why we did the 32 hours."

Becker was also concerned about the necessity of training new officers and paying for the personnel with the skills and understanding of the department to do it. "We need more overtime and more shifts," he concluded.

Though there was no public comment on any agenda items, some have begun to respond to Macungie's new Facebook presence which has been online for some weeks now.

Borough Manager Chris Boehm reported she had made some posts on borough events and received positive comments from a few people already. Boehm, acting on council's previously expressed wishes to see no public comments or posts permitted on the borough's page, was unable to block public comments on borough posts although she could disable posts from other people. She put together a policy so she wouldn't have to "pick and choose" which comments to remove from the page.

"I truly feel that this is beneficial," Boehm said of the borough being on Facebook.

Council member Linn Walker was encouraging. "I think we should try to accept the comments because people have a lot of good things to say." Debra Cope agreed. "I also want to see this work. I'm behind this." But Cope also expressed concern over the amount of time Boehm would have to spend monitoring comments.

"If we see that we have a problem I'm going to come back to council so we can talk about it," Boehm said. "I don't want it to become a bashing station. I don't want to be afraid to test the waters."

The new policy will allow the borough manager to remove comments based on things like inappropriate language or offensive content.

When asked for his opinion, Dave Boyko, emergency management coordinator and council member, is not on Facebook but asserted that "Information is good … If you have a poor comment that could show you how to correct the situation."

Council agreed to continue testing the policy and the Facebook page will remain live.

The borough's emergency management plan continues under construction as Boyko urged council to adopt a new flow chart for his position as coordinator and showing the relationships of the council, the mayor, and the coordinator in both emergency and non-emergency "day-to-day" situations. Chris Becker offered to draft a flow chart and have it reviewed by council.