00:00 - This program has been paid

00:01 - for by the sponsor and does not reflect the views of PCN.

00:05 - Hello and welcome to Inside Pennsylvania.

00:08 - Burrows.

00:12 - Borough mayors across

00:13 - Pennsylvania are dedicated to promoting viable communities.

00:17 - As leaders, they often oversee local police departments

00:21 - and emergency response efforts.

00:23 - Promote civic engagement initiatives and advocate for community projects

00:27 - that may foster greater economic development across their boroughs

00:31 - and region.

00:32 - Joining today's discussion are Mayor Melissa Dean of Bernardsville Borough in

00:36 - Berks County, Mayor Stephanie Haley of East Berlin borough and Adams

00:41 - County Mayor Samantha Craig of West Redding Borough in Berks County,

00:46 - and Mayor Mike Thomas of Windsor Borough in Somerset County.

00:50 - Good day everyone.

00:51 - Mayors across this great commonwealth are working to improve their communities.

00:56 - They are committed public servants that promote positive civic engagement.

01:00 - Mayor, welcome to the set.

01:01 - Hello. Tell us about your borough.

01:03 - I am the mayor of the borough of Hornersville.

01:06 - Hornersville is.

01:07 - It's all you know. It's in real estate.

01:09 - It's location, location, location.

01:11 - And it is absolutely a magical place in the Lebanon

01:14 - Valley focused on the South Mountain.

01:17 - we are 20 minutes

01:18 - from Lancaster, 20 minutes from Lebanon, 20 minutes from downtown Redding.

01:21 - McCaig. Of course, from West Riding Borough, Berks County.

01:24 - Yeah. Yep.

01:24 - So, my borough obviously was Redding.

01:27 - We are a point six square mile dense borough.

01:30 - We have a hospital and schools that kind of are surrounding us.

01:34 - we are kind of the same thing.

01:36 - Location. We're an hour from Philly.

01:37 - An hour, like half an hour from Lancaster, an hour from Allentown.

01:41 - we're a very diverse group of of individuals.

01:44 - And we have our main street, which is usually really poppin

01:48 - with events and like art on the Avenue and Fall Fest.

01:52 - The mayor Haley, of course, from East Berlin borough.

01:54 - Yeah. Thank you.

01:56 - East Berlin is on the easternmost,

01:59 - corner of Adams County.

02:01 - we're a historic, borough with about 1500 residents.

02:06 - lots of, beautiful architecture, great green spaces for the community.

02:11 - so it's a perfect place to live.

02:13 - Close to Gettysburg, close to Harrisburg.

02:15 - Quick drive down to Baltimore.

02:17 - So, Mayor Thomas, tell us about Wimber Borough and Somerset County.

02:20 - Well, we're in the northernmost town in Somerset County.

02:23 - Actually, Cambria County is.

02:25 - We should be in Cambria County almost, because we're that close.

02:28 - we were founded by Berwyn Corporation.

02:31 - So if you take the two syllables in Berwyn and reverse them,

02:34 - that's where they got the name Windsor.

02:37 - we are 2.1mi² per a bear.

02:40 - Tell us about your role, how you interact with the community and

02:43 - and how did you become motivated to become a mayor and engage in local government?

02:48 - The fun thing, and you'll get four different answers

02:51 - from four different mayors on this, on this panel is,

02:55 - what does a mayor do?

02:57 - I chose to be a different type of mayor.

02:59 - the first female mayor in my position.

03:01 - the mayor before me was a little more laid back, and I wanted to see things change.

03:05 - I wanted to see vacant buildings filled.

03:07 - I wanted to see organizations brought into the community.

03:10 - I wanted more of an engaged community effort, a mayor.

03:13 - Same question. So I moved into West Redding.

03:16 - I settled there, and I was a volunteer for quite some time.

03:19 - I started to sit on committees, and then I ran for council

03:23 - and did a term as council.

03:24 - And then I decided I want to do more.

03:27 - and I ran for the mayor role, but it was kind of the same thing.

03:30 - I felt like I could do more in the mayor role,

03:32 - where, like I said, a dense, population, a dense little space.

03:36 - So I wanted to do more with working on grants

03:38 - and being more active in the community and, you know, working

03:42 - hand in hand with our higher elected officials

03:44 - like our state reps and stuff like that, to be able to utilize whatever

03:47 - we could to stay independent and as thriving as we possibly could.

03:51 - Mayor.

03:52 - well, thing was,

03:54 - I have a hard time saying no to friends and friends.

03:57 - thought that I should run.

03:58 - We had a situation where our very long term mayor was not mayor anymore,

04:02 - and so we needed an interim, to fill until the election.

04:06 - And so, I never thought about it.

04:09 - And then I thought, yes, that actually is something,

04:13 - that I would be interested in doing because it's my home town.

04:17 - And, I knew there were a lot of things that we could,

04:22 - do that we weren't doing, and just the concept and the opportunity

04:27 - to build more community is really what drove me to

04:30 - to say yes and to run.

04:33 - I kind of have a similar story.

04:36 - I really had no interest in being in politics or government at all.

04:41 - I had an interest back when I was in eighth grade.

04:43 - I had a civics teacher that really got me interested in government and a mayor.

04:48 - Dean, tell us about how are our local police departments performing

04:51 - and what are some of the key issues that they're confronting in this economy?

04:55 - the borough of Hornersville.

04:56 - It's actually an interesting case study.

04:59 - we had disbanded a regional department because a couple municipalities

05:03 - just couldn't afford it.

05:04 - It just wasn't a viable option anymore.

05:07 - and the option was either, contract with the state police or,

05:13 - a cooperative with a fellow

05:14 - municipality where you reach out and you contract their services.

05:19 - we're about community policing.

05:21 - The police are in the schools.

05:23 - The police are at organizations.

05:24 - They're in events.

05:26 - they're holding events.

05:27 - They know.

05:28 - They know the community.

05:29 - It's not officer wrapped, it's Joe.

05:32 - It's not chief Huck, it's Matt.

05:35 - there's something to be said for spending time

05:37 - in the community and, paying that equity forward.

05:41 - It does pay you back.

05:43 - the nice thing about it is it's, Besides being a money saver,

05:48 - we are working in tandem with our, neighboring communities, municipalities,

05:52 - which we share a same goal and similar outcome.

05:56 - We share a similar goal.

05:59 - it keeps us on target,

06:01 - mayor.

06:02 - So our police department is phenomenal.

06:06 - we have, you know, we have our new chief, Taun Ali,

06:09 - and he's been a godsend to the position.

06:12 - and we also have our, you know, sergeants that are constantly involved, Chad

06:15 - Marx and Wayne Hoban and Brian Phillips, who are kind of keep everything together.

06:19 - And we, our officers are phenomenal.

06:21 - we're really big in community engagement also.

06:24 - it's really important that our officers are out there, like talking to people.

06:28 - having interactions with children's and children and whatnot so that

06:31 - we can make sure that we, are showing that we're also human.

06:35 - I think right now in this economy.

06:37 - We have finding like candidates has been difficult,

06:41 - like we're going through a hiring process to hire two officers,

06:43 - and that's been very difficult.

06:45 - This is our second time going through.

06:47 - In the first time, we had two applicants and neither of them were qualified.

06:51 - So that's a struggle.

06:53 - But I think that's a struggle.

06:54 - You know, with the police and the fire department, with volunteers and such.

06:57 - So I think that's just an all over, people are kind of feeling

07:01 - that, that like pressure to, to kind of get good candidates in.

07:05 - But for the most part we it's just like

07:08 - it's like, Melissa said it's a community engagement.

07:11 - Just making sure that people know that, like,

07:13 - our officers are human and we're here to help people and we're

07:17 - like, everyone's doing their best.

07:18 - But I appreciate department.

07:20 - Everything they've done. And they're in East Broome Borough.

07:23 - So in these Berlin borough we're small.

07:25 - So we only have one police chief.

07:27 - so any of our community events, though, he's, there.

07:31 - He's engaged.

07:33 - when we do homecoming parades, you know, he organizes the state police to help.

07:36 - So he's out and about in the community.

07:39 - we've also,

07:42 - developed a

07:42 - program where he used to do driving lessons, back in his previous life.

07:48 - So kids who need to learn how to parallel park can contact him,

07:52 - and he'll teach them how to parallel park.

07:54 - So just making any effort to engage with the community

07:57 - rather than, you know, potentially getting a speeding ticket.

08:00 - They're also out there to he's there to help the community and

08:04 - and just be visible and, you know, be accountable.

08:09 - We have a full time police department.

08:12 - and we have two officers per shift.

08:14 - So we have a total of three full time officers and,

08:18 - ten part time, which we want to try to get away from the part time.

08:22 - And we were hoping that civil service change would have made it through.

08:27 - But it has.

08:27 - And so we we've moved on to civil service now testing and, whatever.

08:32 - And it's working.

08:34 - But, we do have good coverage.

08:37 - You know, everywhere you go.

08:38 - And if you're in town, you usually see a police cruiser.

08:41 - We don't have anybody around us.

08:43 - We provide services to two neighboring boroughs,

08:47 - paint borough and sculpt level borough.

08:49 - So, you know, it's that's the only thing that's helping

08:53 - to fund us to stay solvent and keep two officers out. And

08:59 - the one

09:00 - person said that, well, why don't you just get the state police?

09:03 - And I tried to explain. They're busy.

09:05 - Nothing against the state police.

09:07 - They do a great job, but they're just busy.

09:09 - And the response time is long.

09:12 - So, you know, you say, well, what if it was your house

09:15 - or your wife or something, you know, wouldn't that be different?

09:19 - And then you kind of get a, a pause.

09:21 - And so but we're going to try as long as we can.

09:24 - That's my passion is the police department.

09:27 - And keeping it.

09:29 - So as long as I'm in a position that I can fight for it, I will.

09:33 - well, if I could just interrupt, real quick.

09:35 - Crime is also changing.

09:37 - And I think that's the neat part about our community

09:39 - policing is they're reaching out to communities that either

09:43 - don't know that a crime has been committed because they don't realize

09:45 - that they've been cyber fraud, or they've been taken advantage of,

09:48 - or a Facebook meetup and you're exchanging products, they're in

09:53 - new, smarter criminals.

09:54 - So our police officers and our community officers have to be smarter as well.

09:58 - And the smartest way to do that is to just engage

10:02 - the community in these conversations.

10:03 - Don't trust this phone call.

10:04 - Don't give away personal information.

10:07 - We're not going to contact you and say, the sheriff's coming to arrest you

10:10 - if you don't send money to this Western Union account.

10:13 - It happens more frequently than people care to admit,

10:17 - and the numbers are frightening.

10:18 - And that's who reports it, not who doesn't report it.

10:21 - So I think that's something we're also engaging in right now in our community.

10:25 - Mayors are very involved in emergency response initiatives.

10:29 - how are our volunteer fire departments as well as our EMS

10:32 - agencies hardly performing?

10:34 - we definitely see the need from our volunteers.

10:37 - and obviously, if you listen to any, you know,

10:41 - information on EMS, you'll know that they're in a bit of a crisis.

10:45 - but just in budget and funding and needing people and people

10:49 - wanting to do that work is is difficult because it's a very difficult job to do.

10:53 - it's it's stressful.

10:55 - It's strenuous on relationships and, you know, sleep schedules, work life,

10:58 - you know.

10:59 - so definitely there's,

11:02 - it's same thing with hiring, officers.

11:04 - There's a need for more

11:06 - and trying to navigate how to get people involved and more interested

11:10 - in coming and doing those things, even if it's just coming to trainings,

11:15 - has been interesting to try to navigate around.

11:19 - Like any volunteer organization, I feel like the fire department

11:23 - and speaking to them, they're really struggling with volunteers.

11:27 - they're also the funding aspect.

11:29 - So the same volunteers who are working full time jobs and doing training

11:34 - and going on calls are also the ones that are managing and planning

11:38 - and organizing 30 fundraisers throughout the year.

11:43 - so it's a lot, and it's not an East Berlin problem.

11:46 - It's not an Adams County problem.

11:47 - It's really a state and really country wide problem.

11:50 - So I think it needs, I'm hoping and doing everything I can

11:54 - to support them, sort of because we can't fix it in East Berlin.

11:59 - So the way the fire companies are funded,

12:03 - across the board needs to be completely really the whole structure

12:07 - needs to be relooked at because it's just not working these days.

12:11 - Our EMS service is now going to merge with a,

12:15 - neighboring EMS service.

12:18 - we'll still have one ambulance in town where we had

12:20 - two before, and it's not going to be right in town.

12:23 - It's going to be kind of on the

12:26 - edge of town.

12:28 - our fire department is struggling.

12:30 - They're going to also merge with another the adjacent fire department.

12:35 - it's a matter of funding and help towards

12:39 - how are municipalities collaborating,

12:41 - engaging in intergovernmental, operations,

12:45 - sharing knowledge, with one another.

12:48 - Mayor.

12:50 - West western berks fire

12:52 - department, Western berks ambulance association.

12:56 - these are two good examples where you have multi municipality, cooperation.

13:01 - It's it's hard to pay for these things on your own.

13:04 - It is our job and responsibility to provide these services to our residents.

13:08 - So how do we do that

13:10 - emergency services are so vital to our communities especially the boroughs.

13:14 - We're smaller, we're more compact.

13:16 - We have, small businesses, we have industries, we have families,

13:19 - we have schools.

13:21 - It's it's not a luxury to expect a fire department to show up.

13:25 - It's not a luxury to expect the ambulance to come when you call.

13:30 - so we work hand in hand with I mean,

13:32 - obviously we assist, in the city when needed and necessary.

13:36 - they also obviously assist with us.

13:38 - so our fire department works, with those around us.

13:41 - Our police department works with those, those around us.

13:43 - And they also help us when, when we need help to.

13:46 - And so also with the Pennsylvania State Association of Boroughs,

13:50 - we are able to kind of see and look and have an idea

13:53 - of how other people are doing things and what's working for them.

13:56 - That way we're not trying to recreate the wheel completely.

13:59 - We're able to kind of see what worked for what municipality, what borough, and

14:02 - how they managed to kind of keep afloat and or help themselves.

14:07 - and also working with, higher up elected officials for grants

14:10 - and trying to find what grants we can have and see how we can help and partner.

14:15 - And that is across the board.

14:16 - That's with our public works

14:18 - department, with our fire department, our police department,

14:21 - even our recreation department works together with other organizations and,

14:25 - close neighbors to see what they're doing and how we can implement

14:28 - or how we can help them and to be successful there.

14:32 - I think every borough sort of comes with its own,

14:36 - the way they've already always done things.

14:39 - and so that might have worked years and decades ago.

14:42 - But now the name of the game is, you know, there's not enough resources or not.

14:46 - There's not enough volunteers.

14:48 - So our fire company has already merged with surrounding, fire companies.

14:53 - But, the SAB has been vital for me specifically.

14:58 - I don't have the time and, to recreate the wheel.

15:02 - So it's great to be able to connect with, like, communities

15:07 - who have already experienced that problem and solved it, or just having another,

15:12 - ear that you can bend because it the problems

15:16 - you're experiencing have probably already happened and been solved elsewhere.

15:20 - So having that connection is vital.

15:23 - We work together

15:24 - with our as I said, we have smaller communities surrounding us.

15:28 - We work together with them.

15:30 - we share some resources when they're plows

15:33 - go down, will help me plow the roads for them.

15:37 - they in turn cut our, levee.

15:40 - We have a flood control levy.

15:42 - They in turn have the equipment to do that. We don't.

15:44 - So they'll do that for us.

15:46 - So it's kind of a trade off, but we work together well.

15:49 - And, now we have a big sewer project coming up, and it's going to affect

15:53 - all three municipalities.

15:54 - So for actually and, we're going to try to work together.

15:58 - We all use the same engineering firm and we're going to just, you know,

16:01 - try to put all our eggs in one basket and see how it all pans out.

16:05 - Now, Burrows have been very strategic and resilient since the pandemic,

16:09 - in the sense of bringing people together through community events

16:12 - and other initiatives.

16:13 - how has your your borough employed some of those strategies?

16:17 - the borough

16:18 - of Hornersville is an interesting issue.

16:22 - we've had multiple commercial buildings

16:25 - on our main street vacant for 15 years plus.

16:30 - so coming out of the pandemic, it didn't seem to affect us

16:34 - because it was as it always was, which is sad to say.

16:39 - but the exciting thing is, is that,

16:41 - with new energy and new breath comes new life.

16:45 - properties are for sale.

16:46 - Have they sold yet? No.

16:47 - But for sale sign means movement means progress.

16:50 - We're small, so borough's.

16:54 - I think it's little things.

16:55 - Christmas tree lightings, Easter egg hunts,

16:58 - events at the library.

17:01 - it's little things that either you remember from your childhood

17:04 - or you can take your child to for free or low cost

17:08 - because everything cost more nowadays.

17:11 - and it's also a chance to see your neighbor.

17:13 - I think people miss seeing each other and just saying hi.

17:18 - Yeah.

17:18 - So we do, community events.

17:20 - So we have, our main street where we close off like the majority of Penn Avenue,

17:25 - and we have Fall Fest and are on the avenue,

17:27 - and that brings in hundreds of thousands of people.

17:29 - We try to get people involved.

17:31 - And then our committees also do like,

17:32 - really great things are recreation department.

17:35 - they do the haunted house of the pavilion and they're constantly engaging

17:38 - the community of all ages, kids to adults.

17:41 - so really, it's just making sure, like, we're getting out there

17:44 - and we actually have a really great group

17:46 - of elected officials that are on our, on our council.

17:48 - So they're constantly getting out there and I'm constantly out there.

17:51 - So we're kind of, leading by example and trying

17:54 - to bring people in and keep every, everything kind of fresh and moving.

18:00 - Same for East Berlin.

18:01 - So in the past three years, we've just started a lot of new traditions.

18:06 - So we just had a haunted trail.

18:09 - that we basically this trail between our dog park and our real park,

18:14 - it turns into a spooky trail for the Halloween holidays.

18:19 - We have, decorating contests.

18:21 - Like you were saying, I think people, I agree,

18:23 - just want to get back together and see one another.

18:27 - So to me, that's the most important way that you can build,

18:32 - community and just build that,

18:35 - trust that you need to have to make anything happen because none of us

18:39 - have a magic wand and are going to be able to do anything by ourselves.

18:42 - So, those community events.

18:45 - And I really didn't realize until I became mayor,

18:47 - it's really volunteers who make everything happen.

18:51 - We don't have a paid Parks and rec.

18:53 - We don't have paid staff.

18:55 - We have three paid staff and that's it.

18:57 - Everything else that happens in our community

18:59 - is volunteer led and organized, which is great.

19:04 - So my job is just to celebrate that. And,

19:07 - just go and have fun when when the events happen

19:10 - and then organize my own as well,

19:12 - because you can never have too many community events, in my opinion.

19:16 - So we're very similar.

19:19 - we have several events each year.

19:22 - Our biggest one is usually on Father's Day weekend.

19:25 - It's called Miner's Memorial Day weekend, and our town was founded on coal mining.

19:30 - So they honor the coal miners, the ones that died,

19:34 - ones that lived, you know, and built the town.

19:37 - And they have a block, the main street, which is Grand Avenue.

19:40 - They block two blocks of that off, and they have vendors and different

19:44 - events, and we have a car show that's fantastic.

19:47 - It's we had like 400 some cars last year parked all along the main street.

19:53 - but there again, it's all volunteers.

19:56 - we couldn't do it without them.

19:57 - We have some great volunteers and and we have people, you know,

20:00 - they don't really want to volunteer, but that's okay.

20:02 - You know, we'll we'll pick up the slack and,

20:06 - we have Veteran's Day and, yeah, Memorial Day and Veteran's Day.

20:10 - We have, ceremonies for the veterans.

20:14 - I never missed one.

20:15 - I'll take a day off work to be there because I think it's important

20:19 - to honor those people. You know, they they struggled.

20:22 - I always say when we have a bad day, just think of the day they had.

20:27 - we have that,

20:29 - we have this year, our school district, we have got a new superintendent,

20:32 - and he really wants to work with the borough.

20:34 - And he did a thing for Halloween

20:37 - where they decorated Recreation Park.

20:41 - and it has a, a road around it, which is about three quarters

20:44 - of a mile around the park.

20:46 - And they decorated it and made it a Halloween,

20:51 - themed,

20:53 - tour.

20:54 - And now they're going to actually, they were having a meeting today.

20:57 - They're going to do a Christmas themed,

21:01 - tour of the park.

21:02 - It's going to be decorated by different businesses,

21:04 - but the kids are going to get involved.

21:05 - He wants to keep the kids busy, and I think that's a great thing.

21:09 - How important is your social media strategy in reaching

21:11 - some of your constituents, your residents, and also your local businesses?

21:16 - I think there's no way to overestimate it.

21:19 - It's so important.

21:22 - and small business

21:24 - is the lifeblood of Berks County and Pennsylvania

21:27 - in of itself.

21:30 - surprisingly, a lot of that small business is farms.

21:33 - It's local farms, it's family farms.

21:37 - and there's something about the opportunity to say,

21:41 - hey, have you seen this place?

21:42 - Hey, have you tried this place?

21:44 - Hey, have you come up here on your way through?

21:47 - And it's exciting.

21:48 - And the business owners couldn't be more pleased than punch.

21:52 - I mean, they're just glad that an elected official has deigned their presence.

21:56 - I mean, again, West Redding

21:57 - really is the synergy and energy a lot of us would like to attain

22:01 - where they have their local government, their their small business community

22:05 - and their volunteer organizations really working together to create a wheel

22:10 - that's fully spoked and moves down the road at a nice pace.

22:14 - I'm telling you, she's she's nailing it.

22:17 - So I even need to speak right now.

22:19 - Please do. Mayor.

22:20 - no. Basically, a social media is incredibly important.

22:23 - as an elected official,

22:25 - I have my own mayor page that I constantly share

22:27 - and post things and post information on, but I also tried to,

22:31 - make sure that our police department is posting a lot of stuff, too.

22:34 - And if I can delegate it to the police department,

22:37 - and or it's something that I can kind of put into their wheelhouse to do or post,

22:40 - I try to do that so that, you know, if there's one at one point,

22:43 - I'm not the mayor anymore.

22:44 - People still know

22:45 - to go to that police department page and get information from there.

22:49 - And they're not solely looking at me for it.

22:52 - because I want to make sure that, you know, people know where to go.

22:56 - right.

22:56 - Transparency. Yeah.

22:58 - Incredibly.

22:59 - Yeah. So, so and that's really important.

23:01 - In our main street, we have a main Street manager

23:03 - that does like the

23:04 - some of the social media and stuff for our small businesses

23:06 - because she's right, small businesses huge.

23:08 - And I personally like to go out and I do post, I go places, I see things,

23:12 - I share it, I show show people kind of what I'm up to, what I'm doing.

23:16 - You know what I'm working on.

23:17 - And I think it's incredibly important.

23:19 - because it does.

23:20 - People like the small businesses love when you come

23:23 - and you say hello and they know that you they know that you're there

23:26 - supporting them and that you're there for them

23:27 - and that they have questions or, you know, need an answer for something.

23:32 - and I think that it's also a balance for the older generation to like you know,

23:37 - if I'm walking around somewhere and I see somebody walking out, say hello

23:40 - and just kind of introduce myself, because not everybody uses social media.

23:45 - So there is that kind of balance, because the younger people

23:48 - will look at your Facebook page before they'll go to the borough page.

23:51 - So you have to kind of guide them to the correct avenues.

23:54 - Whereas the older generation, well, maybe more so email

23:58 - you or look at the borough page

24:00 - instead of kind of see what you're doing on a Facebook page.

24:02 - So it's it's definitely important and there's definitely a balance.

24:05 - Mayor Healey,

24:06 - I find communication really difficult and I really did not expect that.

24:11 - So, we have a mix of older residents, younger residents,

24:15 - renters, you name it, just like any borough does.

24:19 - But I really was not expecting it to be so difficult to reach people.

24:24 - so my mayor Facebook page just doesn't cut it.

24:28 - It's not enough.

24:29 - So I also have an email opt it and newsletter that gets emailed.

24:34 - People can opt into that.

24:35 - Some of the, some folks prefer that there's a neighbor spotlight in there

24:40 - to highlight just individuals in our community.

24:44 - Just again, stressing and promoting the community,

24:49 - and, meeting new people.

24:52 - then there's the borough website.

24:54 - people, can they text me?

24:56 - They Facebook message me.

24:57 - It's really just being accessible.

24:59 - And, but yeah, the communication is, more difficult than I would have.

25:05 - It's not a one size fits all for sure.

25:08 - So you really have to make a huge effort to reach people.

25:13 - I agree, we use mostly Facebook

25:16 - and the borough website for our communications.

25:20 - we don't get into too much print anymore because it's so expensive.

25:24 - You know, it's it's hard enough to advertise your meetings, but,

25:29 - Facebook seems to be working in our town.

25:31 - and you do have, as she said,

25:35 - people that don't use any type of electronic media.

25:37 - And that's that's difficult, but that's changing.

25:40 - And so we we put it out there,

25:43 - you know, and then we get everybody to share it. And,

25:46 - because our police department has one, our borough

25:48 - has a Facebook page, our ballroom has a Facebook page.

25:52 - So we, we have like 4 or 5 of them, and we try to get everything out there

25:55 - and cross it over and, try to make people know what's going on.

26:00 - And of course, 2025, there will be municipal elections

26:03 - across the Commonwealth of Pennsylvania.

26:05 - What advice can you give, mayor to, any of our viewers at home?

26:10 - those that are interested in perhaps being a part of their own local government,

26:14 - I'd say attend a local council meeting, a local,

26:17 - zoning meeting, a local planning commission meeting.

26:19 - it's interesting, it's boring,

26:21 - but it's your neighborhood, and it's it's important to get involved.

26:24 - Yeah, I would say the same.

26:26 - come to a council meeting if you like. A specific thing.

26:28 - Like nature coming to an EEOC meeting.

26:31 - just sit in a committee meeting.

26:33 - honestly, reach out to your local elected officials, whether it council or mayor.

26:36 - A lot of us are excited when somebody reaches out to us

26:39 - and wants to get involved.

26:41 - Yeah, I would agree.

26:42 - Definitely reach out to anyone.

26:45 - A mayor council person.

26:46 - if you enjoy and love your community, just do it.

26:51 - you'll learn just like we all did.

26:54 - we didn't know every rule or in regulation.

26:57 - You'll you'll just learn it.

26:58 - Yeah, I sorry, I didn't mean to cut you off.

27:00 - I think that's that's one of the things, right?

27:02 - Is everybody thinks you have to have this, like, certain level of information.

27:05 - And really, it's just like, just come right into it.

27:08 - Like you, a lot of us didn't have a clue what we were doing.

27:10 - We just wanted to get involved and do more.

27:12 - And I think those are the best mayors.

27:13 - We show up and pay attention.

27:15 - Yeah, yeah, come to the meeting, you're going to find something there

27:19 - that that's going to either get your interest or you're not going to like,

27:23 - and then that might get you involved, of course, as all the time we have

27:28 - this fantastic subject, mayor Dean, how can we get more information?

27:31 - And we're in a school borough.

27:32 - you can find out information about where Nashville borough from Warner's ville.

27:35 - Borough dawg.

27:36 - our Parks and rec meet the first Monday of the month.

27:38 - We'd love to see you come out and join the team.

27:40 - And Mayor Cake in West Redding borough.

27:42 - You can come to our borough hall and get our newsletter

27:44 - to see all of our events and what we have upcoming.

27:46 - You can go to West Redding Borough Dawg for more information, or you can follow my

27:51 - Mayor Samantha Cake page or our West Wing Borough page on Facebook or Instagram.

27:55 - Amber Haley and East Berlin Borough so please come to East Berlin.

27:59 - any time for some great food and some great people.

28:02 - you can also find us on East Berlin Borough McCombe

28:05 - for all of our upcoming events and Mayor Thomas Windsor Borough.

28:08 - You get the last word today. Okay.

28:10 - You can contact us at Windsor Borough.

28:12 - Com so we're covered on Facebook and come to one of our meetings.

28:16 - I want to thank our guests for their exceptional community leadership efforts.

28:20 - Thanks so much for tuning in. Have a great day.

28:49 - This program has been paid

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