David Fink, director of Public Works, reported supervisors and Kevin Huber, road superintendent, recently did their annual road inspection during the May 21 Heidelberg Township Board of Supervisors meeting.

“Overall, they’re not too bad of shape. Of course we could use additional funding to do more paving, but funds are going to be limited this year for paving,” he said.

One of the items that the supervisors looked at is the intersection of Reidy Mill Road and Mantz Road coming on to Bake Oven Road. They do not intersect.

“The roads are at a 30 degree anglethere -- very difficult and the sight distance is terrible. You actually almost have to crick your neck to look for coming traffic,” Fink said.

“We will discuss what the supervisors offered, and we will take it up further with Geoff Dean’s report,” Fink said.

Township engineer Geoff Dean reported during his monthly report that the 2026 MS4 project has been advertised at this point, and there will be a brief hearing before next month’s meeting to discuss if there’s any public question or comment on that.

“Following that, we will get the amended request to the DEP and hopefully that’ll be a short turn around and we’ll be able to move forward with that finally,” he said. “We will get to work on an engineering estimate for survey design and permitting of that roadway realignment effort David mentioned.”

Fink said “Geoff, Kevin and I met earlier this evening and looked at the realignment of the roads with Bake Oven Road, and we’d like to have some feedback on what it will cost for permitting and all on the DEP end of it,” before asking Dean about the time frame on permits, engineering and all that stuff.

“I’ll look to have something by next month’s meeting,” Dean said. “I’m guessing it’ll take me a couple of weeks to look into the permitting and what we need to do for permitting.”

Board member Matthew Schneider during his Farmland Preservation Committee report said it was confirmed that Lehigh County is number one in the country for percentage of preserved farmland and Act 4 was passed for another 10 years.

He said the top 11 farms on the list for 2027 includes only one farm in Heidelberg.

Township administrator Dawn Didra began her monthly report saying that Katie Fabian, treasurer/administrative assistant, had some exciting news to share.

“Heidelberg Township has been awarded the LSA Northampton and Lehigh grant for an outdoor community sign, so we have $43,000 that we got so we’ll be getting a sign,” Fabian said. “I do want to mention that it was $1,469 under what we asked for but we did put in the full 5 percent contingency that we were allowed to which came to $2,125. So our contingency should be able to cover the work.”

She said this was submitted back in August 2025, so she is sure prices have gone up, and she will keep the board posted on the issue.

Didra then said she and Fabian met with Lehigh County Executive Josh Siegel and Samantha Pearson, the acting director of community and economic development.

“They’re setting up meetings with all the municipalities to get feedback on what we would like the county to help us with,” Didra said. “Mostly, we spoke about needing help with grants. Both in getting grants and writing grants. It’s great to get grants, but it takes a lot of work and a lot of effort to do it.

“We talked about maybe they can get grants and then funnel them down to the municipalities. Also, they’re looking at possibly assisting municipalities with lower interest loans through a county bond or something like that.”

Didra reported she also attended six Lehigh Valley strategy sessions to give input on the future Lehigh Valley plan that’s being updated by the Lehigh valley Planning Commission.

“It’s like a comprehensive plan but it’s for the entire Lehigh Valley and all other plans that the LVPC creates are guided by this one overall regional plan,” she said. “It’s also used by LVPC when they review subdivision and land development plans.”

Didra said there will be more of these sessions in the future, and she was also invited to attend a recent environmental committee meeting to discuss the agricultural industry and its future.

Jonathan Jakum, chairman of the board of supervisors, reported during his monthly Environmental Advisory Council report, the EAC is requesting the supervisors to formally approve their fencing project.

He said they want to replace some of the old wooden rail fence around the riparian buffer area and they are going to be doing it at their own cost.

“They’re going to be reimbursing the township for the money correct?” Jakum asked Didra.

“No, they’re going to be buying everything and then they’re going to give us an accounting of what they purchased so that we can acknowledge their donation,” Didra said.

After further discussion, Jakum made a motion for the board of supervisors at the meeting to approve the fencing project and to accept their financial donation estimated to be $800 to $950. The motion was approved.

Under unfinished business, Rex Road Bridge was discussed.

“We received notice from Congressman Ryan McKenzie’s office that $375,000 has been allocated for the Rex Road Bridge,” Didra said. “It will be available in the next few months, not to us but to PennDOT. We’ll have to work with them to figure out what we need to do to get it from PennDOT, but if the board could authorize Keystone Consulting Engineers to do a survey of the site, we can start moving on that process.”

Jakum made a motion to let Keystone to start site survey work, and it was approved.

Under new business, Jakum reviewed the auditor’s letter.

“On the recent audit of township financial records for the fiscal year of Jan. 1, 2025, through Dec. 31, 2025, we have determined the township has managed revenue, expenditures and assets in an effective manner with proper controls in place and within the budget for the 2025 fiscal year,” Jakum read from the letter.

He also said the letter mentioned a few observations.

According to the letter, the fire department likely made a credit card error when submitting an expense and the auditors recommended that the fire company reimburse the township $53.07 if this expense isn’t an acceptable use of the general funds.

“The treasurer’s knowledge, preparation and record keeping was extremely helpful in the audit,” Jakum said. “All township employees that were engaged by the auditors were accommodating, prompt and helpful to the audit, and finally employee receipts and documentation of expenses improved over the previous year.”