PA Bill Number: HB2235
Title: Providing for regulation of the meat packing and food processing industry by creating facility health and safety committees in the workplace; ...
Description: Providing for regulation of the meat packing and food processing industry by creating facility health and safety committees in the workplace; ... ...
Last Action: Referred to LABOR AND INDUSTRY
Last Action Date: Apr 25, 2024
Tea party member tells Bethlehem Township it must repeal law banning guns in parks :: 01/19/2015
Walking in a Bethlehem Township park with a gun should not be an uncommon sight or illegal, and the township's current law prohibiting the activity must be changed, according to a member of a local gun rights group.
At Monday night's township commissioners meeting, Lehigh Valley Tea Party's Second Amendment Committee member Glenn Krier essentially put the commissioners on notice that the current law prohibiting firearms in the township's 10 parks is illegal and needs to be changed.
A state law passed last year allows firearms to be carried in parks and no local government can prohibit it, Krier said.
"Is the township aware of the new law? If so, when will it change?'' Krier asked the commissioners.
Township Manager Melissa Shafer said she did receive a letter from the tea party about the law and it was forwarded to the township solicitor.
"Solicitor [James] Broughal is reviewing it and will be advising the board,'' she said.
Assistant Township Manager Doug Bruce said he received a letter with a notification of the law and how it supersedes local law from a representative of the Libertarian Party of Pennsylvania.
Shafer said changing the law would require eliminating the current prohibition by creating a new ordinance or rule change to reflect allowing people to openly carry guns in parks.
Krier said the township could find itself in a costly lawsuit if police were to arrest someone for carrying a gun in a township park.
"If someone complains [about a person carrying a gun in a park], calls police and they make an arrest, the township is liable for all of it,'' he said.
After the meeting, Krier said, "They have to change the law and we'll be following up by coming to meetings.''
Commissioner Tom Nolan said it is an issue to be addressed by the solicitor and then the commissioners.
"But if I saw someone walking across our park with a gun, I would find it disturbing,'' Nolan said.
As to why someone would need to carry a gun in a township park, Krier said, "What's wrong with it as long as you're not endangering anyone? They got the right.''
In other business, commissioners approved a plan by Verizon to build a cellphone tower off Township Line Road near Route 22.
Kate Durso, a Center Valley attorney representing Verizon, said the tower would be built on the PPL Pointe North Substation property, with the property being leased to Verizon.
The tower will be 120 feet tall with an additional 5-foot lighting rod. Construction is expected to begin later this year with the tower operational by 2016.
Verizon representative Brian Grebis said the tower will permit the company to increase broadcast capacity to relieve any jams in wireless connections.
The tower is also expected to provide service for several areas currently without service west of Route 512 and a northwest section of Bethlehem.
http://www.mcall.com/news/local/bethlehem/mc-bethlehem-township-0119-20150119-story.html
