The first item up for discussion, and a rare point of indecision at the Sept. 10 authority meeting, was Mayor Bob Donchez’s recently announcing a strict and enforceable gift policy for city employees. Or, as authority members observed, a vague ethical pronouncement wholly up to individual interpretation.

Members Mark Jobes and Laurie Hackett and solicitor Jim Broughal went back and forth for several minutes, unable to determine what might constitute a violation without specific guidelines. If a meal is covered for a member representing personal, professional and volunteer entities at a lunch meeting, is that a gift violation? Broughal insisted people know who they’re representing when they go to a meeting, but Hackett wasn’t so sure it was that cut-and-dried.

Jobes said he wouldn’t be happy with the policy unless it included a dollar threshold not to be exceeded by a gift-giver.

Members agreed to table the matter until absent personnel could be engaged.

Little else was up for discussion, but board President John Tallarico said that fact was itself a matter of frustration regarding the Penn East Pipeline. There has been no response regarding the risk analysis submitted nearly two months ago, and in fact PennEast has been silent overall.

Broughal said there is currently nothing the board can do but wait until PennEast has commitments on paper. “We’re the largest land owner [in this pipeline plan]; you’d think they’d want to sit down and talk and appease us,” he said with a shrug.

“It is what it is right now,” Tallarico said.

Vaughn Gower said, “They can’t be ignorant that they can’t lay a pipeline without an easement.”

Jobes voiced the logical conclusion of their anxiousness. “They’re going to have to come to the table at some point.”

The next meeting is tentatively rescheduled for 4 p.m. Oct. 15 at city hall.