BEACH LAKE, PA — The climate of public mistrust that developed during the Berlin Township board of supervisors’ recent unsuccessful attempt to pass a nuisance abatement ordinance lingered on at the board’s May 19 meeting. With not a single agenda item judged sufficiently routine or inconsequential to escape scrutiny, taxpayers questioned both expenditures and revenue.

A polite inquiry from a resident about income generated by solar panels atop the community center triggered a history of the panels by board chair Paul Henry. According to Henry, a well-placed legislator from another state, who just happened to be the relative of a Berlin resident, made the township aware of a generous federal grant available to municipalities seeking solar power installations. Berlin applied for it and received it, making purchase and installation of the panels free to Berlin taxpayers.

Supervisor Cathy Hunt saved the best part of that story for last. Each month the panels provide an income that varies with the seasons. She said that during this past winter, the dividend checks were smaller than usual because the panels had been covered with snow. Even so, that income was sufficient to cover the center’s monthly mortgage payments over the course of a year. Henry emphasized how important that is, saying that heating costs are always escalating and that the center has been steadily losing money on room rentals.

Some old business came up. In the absence of the emergency management coordinator (EMC), Henry read aloud an estimate for purchase of a laptop computer requested by the EMC at last month’s meeting. When the EMC made his request, Henry asked him to provide the board with some estimates for laptops and software. Only one estimate from a local vendor was provided, which led Henry to say that he would like to see a couple more before making a purchase. But he did note that the $514.99 for a Dell Inspiron laptop and word processing software seemed reasonable.

Resident Shawn Utegg questioned whether the laptop was really necessary for the EMC to do his job. To which Henry replied that the EMC is an unpaid position mandated by law. “If the township does not have an EMC, it is automatically ineligible for FEMA and PEMA funding in the event of a disaster,” said Henry. He went on to say, “I was Berlin’s EMC during a hurricane a few years back. The EMC has to correspond with government entities, and correspondence with government entities is done electronically. That laptop is a tool the EMC needs to do his job.”

Utegg retorted that the laptop’s purchase price might not be high but that there would inevitably be additional costs for maintenance and repairs and for virus and malware protection. And Henry replied that all township tools come with repair and maintenance costs, including highway department vehicles and equipment, adding, “None of us here looks at life through rose-colored glasses. Trucks need new tires and brakes and snowplow edges need periodic replacement. That’s the wear and tear of life.”

The board will ask the EMC to provide two more laptop estimates before going forward with the purchase.

With the next order of business, roadmaster Hunt turned the tables on the taxpayers, asking them which they thought was the more effective product: cinders or anti-skid. The price differential between the two products was 99 cents per ton, and the clear consensus was that cinders are preferable to anti-skid. “Cinders it is,” said Hunt.