In a historic meeting, Catasauqua Borough Council held its first livestreamed meeting April 6.

A total of 17 people attended the meeting remotely.

Borough Manager Steven Travers and two staff members were present in the borough complex to handle the meeting’s technical aspects.

Council President Vincent Smith called the meeting to order at 7:05 p.m. The principle reason of the meeting was to renew Mayor Barbara Schlegel’s emergency declaration called in March.

Council unanimously passed the renewal declaration via a council resolution. The declaration runs April 7-May 13 and allows council to bypass some of the normal order of business.

“I thank council. It’s very important to our community,” Schlegel said in response to council’s swift action.

Travers thanked Catasauqua Police Department and the fire and emergency services for working tirelessly to help residents.

“These are challenging times for everyone. We are fortunate to have professional people to get us through this,” he noted.

Council member Brian Bartholomew asked Travers if he had information about how many residents have tested positive for COVID-19. Travers responded that neither the county nor the state are providing that detailed information.

Councilman Paul Cmil asked Travers if there is any planning to provide short-term relief to Catasauqua Community Food Bank and other organizations providing food to residents.

Travers said council can help, and he is checking what the needs are.

Councilwoman Deb Mellish inquired whether or not the borough has enough personal protective equipment.

“We are covered for about a week and a half,” Travers replied. “We are in pretty good shape now.”

He went on to explain they have orders out to a number of suppliers.

All of council individually offered thanks to emergency services and the organizations in Catasauqua providing food to residents.

Reached before the meeting, council President Vincent Smith said he was delighted to have the first livestreamed meeting. Smith noted he has advocated for digital meetings for a number of years but was never able to garner enough council votes to begin the practice.

His desire is to have the future council meetings livestreamed. Workshop meetings would be held in public.

The meeting was adjourned 7:31 p.m.

Due to the pandemic, the next livestreamed meeting of borough council will be its workshop meeting 7 p.m. April 27.

The access code will be available on the borough website, catasauqua.org.