REPORTS
Special Council Meetings: Council is scheduling three special council meetings
relating to ARPA funding. On May 25 at 6 PM, Council will discuss and present
categories they find important for ARPA funding and take public testimony on these
and any additional areas. On June 7 and June 9th at 5:30 PM Council will discuss and
take testimony on specific allocations for the categories. We ask vested interest to
contact the Clerk to give testimony or provide documents; the office will also be
reaching out to specific vested interests that have been before us and those
suggested by the Administration to provide testimony The plan is to have a workable
proposal ready by June 15th that has been driven with participation with a broad
swath of the community as possible. We are open for other suggestions as well; feel
free to send you comments to the Council President, Vice-President, and City Clerk.
Controller's Report
Mr. Jeffrey Glazier gave a brief Report on Accounts Payable for April 2 - 29. The
Controller's office reviewed 312 computer checks, 13 manual checks and the total
count of documents was 496. Of those documents, 13 had issues for about two
percent. They did 26 wires and 13 of those wires had issues with 50 percent. The
city pays for parking on the deck for employees and gets billed per employee. On
one of the most recent invoices, they noticed that two employees were no longer
using the deck. They might have been on Family Leave. The Controller's office
pointed that out and determined that it had gone on four months prior. They
overpaid the Parking Authority $600 for parking that the city was not using. Another
issue of interest, if an employee is going away on a conference or for training,
depending on the situation they may get an advance to help them with expenses.
Those advances should generally come only two to three weeks in advance the
conference. The city had two travel advances that were issued. One was issued
nine weeks in advance, one was issued 10 weeks in advance and the risk here is that
somebody may get sick or the conference may get cancelled and then you have to
recoup the money. Those checks were voided and they will be reissued in a more
timely manner. They had some issues with wires where 13 had to either be returned
or rejected because either the description of the wire was incorrect or the date of
the invoice on the wire was incorrect. This is important for an audit trail. You need
the correct information.
Mayor's Report
Mr. Leonard Lightner stated that the Mayor provided a written copy. The city itself
continues to make improvements in delivering the city's best products that we can.
They had the Allentown Police Department's Commendation Ceremony. The mayor
would like to thank Ms. Mota, Mr. Zucal, Mr. Hendricks and Mr. Siegel for attending
today. The Lenape Trail rededication on Friday, May 14. The mayor was joined by
members of the Delaware Nation raising the flag in front of city hall. The following
Saturday, the city rededicated the Lenape Trail to the Lehigh Valley with the help of