Two months after the Lower Towamensing Township’s secretary left, two of the township’s three supervisors asked her to come back temporarily. Supervisor Connie Brown was not present at the meeting.

Former township secretary Christine Wentz will work a few hours in the evenings after working full-time in her new job to run the office and train a new employee for the job.

This request was met with disagreement from Terry Kuehner, a resident who was newly elected to the township’s board of supervisors, but won’t be on the board until January.

“Why would you hire somebody back that has no interest in the township; that resigned,” Kuehner said. “Several person applied for this position. Why would you not hire them now, who have an interest instead of having a negative interest that resigned?”

“She doesn’t have a negative interest,” said Supervisor Jay Mullikin, “She resigned because you’re a pain in the ...”

Kuehner has been attending the township meetings in 2021 and has said that he intended to fire several township employees if elected to the board of supervisors.

In addition to no office staff, the township is down to two employees on the road crew, but no roadmaster.

Directing his questions to Brent Green, the chairman of the supervisors, Kuehner went on to ask several questions about why her resignation was accepted, and how money is being handled in the absence of a secretary and treasurer.

Green said the process of hiring a new secretary, road crew and processing requests, answering calls and recording payments has been slow because the supervisors all have full-time jobs that often require more than 40 hours a week of work. They are not able to be in the township office to take care of business, but they intend to hire a new secretary within the next couple weeks.

Green said they have narrowed down the candidates to six. They have also received several applicants for the roadwork positions, and will hire those people as soon as the secretary position is filled.

In the meantime, Wentz will come in a few hours in the evenings and will be paid $30 per hour.

The supervisors also approved a service agreement with Mauch Chunk Trust Co. to serve as treasurer for the township and handle items such as payroll and paying the bills. The service agreement is for six months and can be renewed. It costs $375 per month.

Resident Debbie Imbriaco asked the supervisors why Wentz is going to be paid $30 per hour, which is more than she was making before she left.

Green said it is because she isn’t receiving any benefits and it was an incentive to get her to accept coming back.

Other residents had questions from issues with the garbage hauler to wondering if their payments to the borough are being processed.

Mullikin said he has marked all of the bills that came in during the discount period. The supervisors do not intend to impose late penalties, due to the office situation.

“We’ve been receiving calls about not seeing checks cleared and other things,” Green said. “We’ve been working on processing payments for the garbage bills and other things that have been coming in. That’s why we hired a temporary employee to come in and assist with that. If anybody has concerns, they can call or email the township with those concerns. If they give us the date of payment, we will anticipate clearing the checks within the next two weeks.”

Green said County Waste, the township’s garbage hauler, was recently bought out by another company and the transition hasn’t been seamless. He said if anyone has an issue with garbage not being picked up, then they should call the garbage company. The garbage hauler is required to pick up the garbage within the same week that it is put out.

“We’ve been working with them diligently over the past three weeks to go out and take care of that,” he said.

Green asked the community to please be patient as they resolve the backlog of requests, answer questions, and hire staff.

“We will get back to you,” he said.