In fall 2009, Lackawaxen Supervisors adopted our Joint Municipal Comprehensive Plan Update. We then started upgrading our Lackawaxen Township ordinances and regulations to be compatible with this Plan Upgrade. These initiatives were done after much research and grass-roots public input. We wanted these initiatives to strengthen and protect our regulations, which are designed to protect our quality of life.

Concurrently, we have responded to resident complaints and requests that we more fully protect their quality of life. So, we have studied many alternatives to accomplish this. Supervisors in the past year, assembled a Committee of volunteers to study nuisance, noise, light, dangerous structures' abuses, and other issues addressing complaints lodged by residents, mostly at our public meetings.

These residents persistently complained that some individuals violated privacy, quality of life, well being, and safety of their neighbors. At our June Nuisance Ordinance Public Hearing, one citizen suggested that we as a township should try to protect its citizens and quality of life by addressing specific health, safety, and welfare issues. Rather than pass a nuisance ordinance that many residents felt could give too sweeping enforcement powers to government, we opted for a more user-friendly approach of responding to legitimate citizen complaints by passing specific issues that covers township-wide citizen needs. We opted for addressing complaints via stand-alone ordinances.

After much discussion and research, supervisors agreed that this scaled-down enforcement approach had much merit. We have concluded that the Noise and Light and Public Welfare ordinance is the first of the issues flagged by our residents as an issue that requires township action. This ordinance is designed to protect our residents from the potentially aggressive and irresponsible acts of those who persist in systematically and outrageously disrespect the privacy and peace of neighboring property owners.

These stand-alone ordinances, such as the one for noise and light abuse, address township responsibilities under our state code for municipalities that authorize us to protect citizens' health, safety, and welfare. We held the Public Hearing for the Noise and Light and Public Welfare ordinance at our regular township meeting on Nov. 18 at the township building. We scheduled the vote for adoption at 6:30 p.m. on Dec. 16 at the Lackawaxen Township Building on Township Road, located off Route 590.

We are working hard to update our regulations, so if you have ideas on how to further improve our quality of life, improve our regulations that protect our quality of life, and overall, to make our township a better place to live, please let us know by coming to the township's regular meetings on the third Wednesdays of every month unless otherwise advertised or posted on the township building window or Home Page of this web site.