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Submitted by DAVE SICA

At the April 30 Nazareth Council Workshop meeting a variety of issues were discussed, including the banner program and the police surveillance cameras in the park.

Stephanie Varone, Nazareth Borough Downtown Coordinator, discussed the future of the banner program. Issues with Met-Ed, the local electric company, have caused the council to put the banner program on hold until they get everything sorted out with the company. Met-Ed is seeking an updated list and information regarding poles with banners currently and poles that are being requested. Varone said that she needs to check every pole, and joked that she “knows too much about poles already.”

Currently, Varone estimates that 22 to 24 businesses are requesting banners. She stated that although they focused on Main Street that other streets, such as Belvedere and Center Street can be available for banners.

The Nazareth Farmers Market has grown exponentially since the idea first took root. It has 21 vendors now and will be open Saturdays from 9 a.m. until 1 p.m. The market will be open through October 31. Varone said that she is looking into the possibility of setting up community service students at the Market. She also said there is potential for concerts there in the fall.

Councilman Brian Regn said the upgrade to the police camera system will be finished this week. Regn presented one motion that caused a bit of controversy. The cameras would cost $4,000 and would be issued to each officer. The day’s recording would be downloaded and backed up to a police server when the camera was docked at the end of each shift. Mayor Carl Styre suggested that a policy should be put in place to make sure the officers cannot turn off the cameras at will. However, Nazareth Police Chief Thomas Trachta objected to not allowing the officers to have autonomy to operate the cameras. Regn and Councilman Charles Donello agreed with the mayor, saying the cameras would be pointless if the officers could disable them. Chief Trachta argued that it needed to be at the officer’s discretion, citing bathroom breaks and sexual assault victim cases. All parties agreed that they needed to do more research on the issue.

In other news, the bids are in for setting up the Nazareth Pool Fence: Anchor Fence would do the work for $23.491, Triboro Fence will do it for a little over $22,000 and Promax Fence Systems will do it for $21,249.

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