Welcome to 2023!
I hope everyone had a relaxing holiday season that allowed you to recharge your batteries, spend needed time with family, and dedicate some time to self-care. As we transition into January, and the new fiscal year, it is important to outline some of the major initiatives that as a community I think we need to tackle in the coming months.
Municipal 5G
Over the last few years, I have dedicated many pages of content to exploring the possibility of build our own 5G network for our community. After working through a difficult budget year, it is clearer to me than ever that it is time for us to explore this opportunity in detail and begin understanding what it would take for Lansdale to build and operate our own 5G internet system. The reality is that we cannot, reasonably, expect residents to bear the brunt of tax increases year after year without providing a better value or service to them.
Building a 5G system with gigabit speed would allow residents the opportunity to create a more affordable and competitive option to internet access for businesses and residents alike. In addition, the investment most homes would be making for standard internet access would stay locally and be re-invested in the community rather than going to Verizon and Comcast.
I am not saying this process or plan would be easy or straightforward. However, we need to start somewhere, and we need to explore new ideas if we are ever going to offset the need for tax increases in a growing community. 2023 seems like a great year to dive into this issue and start to lay the groundwork for our own internet infrastructure.
Locally Generated Power and Power Resale
This is another issue that I have discussed in detail over my term as mayor. The rising cost of power, specifically in the form of transfer fees, is hampering our ability to further invest in our borough. We must find a way to generate more power locally so that we are buying less power overall and decrease our transfer costs. While it is unlikely that we will generate enough power in the borough to be 100% local, dedicating space and resources to this effort will only improve over time. Solar panel efficiency continues to improve allowing for each cell to generate more power in the same physical space. Dedicating space now will allow us to, over time, grow our locally generated power and drive down energy transfer costs dramatically.
Alongside decreasing our energy transfer costs, we need to begin outlining and designing our plan to manage the resale of Lansdale Electric power. Undoubtedly, the increase in electric cars will result in the need for more power to be purchased in the borough (which again, will impact our transfer fees). We need to explore how best to ensure our publicly funded electric system is set up and maintained to handle for-profit entities using our power to re-sell to consumers for EV cars. This might be as simple as a flat fee, or a laddered scale, but we need to make sure our plan is built for the long-term impact of power re-sale to ensure the residents of the borough are still receiving the exceptional service they are used to.
Dedicated Traffic Management & Policing
One of the new major expenditures in the 2023 budget is the addition of three new police officers. This request was made in order to better manage the immense amount of traffic we have moving through the borough on any given day. In the coming months, Chief Trail, the Public Safety Committee, and I will be reviewing a plan to dedicate these resources to ensuring our roads are properly managed, safely operated, and reducing speed as much as possible. As noted during the budget review process, traffic concerns continue to be the number one issue residents speak to myself and the Public Safety Committee about. While the addition of these officers and the creation of their new traffic management unit will not solve the issue alone, it is a positive first step in resolving some of the traffic issues.
In order to properly, and comprehensively, resolve our traffic mitigation issues, we will need to complete a traffic and parking study for the borough. The study has been scheduled, but not executed, due to the pandemic changing traffic patterns. It is time to execute this study and formalize a plan to properly manage traffic as it exists today in our community.
While these are not the only issues ongoing in our community, I believe they are some of the largest that we need to recommit ourselves to resolving and making positive headway on. What we cannot do is allow the scope of these challenges to immobilize us from action. They are, without a doubt, big tasks and hard projects. However, as a community we must keep moving forward and that means being bold enough to set new plans into action while being prepared to adjust as we foster and facilitate our growth and longevity.
(Mayoral Musings is a weekly op-ed column submitted to North Penn Now, courtesy of Lansdale Borough Mayor Garry Herbert. The views expressed are his own.)
See also:
Mayoral Musings: Merry Christmas and Happy Holidays!
Mayoral Musings: Attacks on Local Drag Queen’s Employment Another Example of ‘Otherism’
Mayoral Musings: Municipal 5G – Answering Reader Questions
Mayoral Musings: Municipal 5G is Lansdale’s Way Forward
Mayoral Musings: 2023 Budget Discussion
