1155 Red Fox Road | East Stroudsburg, PA 18301

 

 

Spring Leaf Pick-up

The Township Road & Maintenance Department will be picking up leaves from residents on Township roads beginning on Monday, April 18th to Friday, May 6th.

Guidelines
Residents may only place leaf piles on township roads only. Leaf piles should not include apples, sticks, or walnuts. For a list and map of Township roads, click here to download the Township Road Map.

There are no fees associated with the leaf pick-up.

To be placed on one of the daily routes, please call the Roads & Maintenance Department at (570) 223-5082 opt. 8. Priority will be assigned based on the calls received. Dates are subject to change in accordance with weather conditions.

Deadline April 20th

With over 50 miles of township roads, road crew members are responsible for duties such as road construction and maintenance, winter snow and ice removal, traffic and street signage, stormwater works, and maintenance and repair of township equipment.
Smithfield Township is now accepting applications for an experienced, full time road crew member. Other than experience operating equipment and maintaining roads, applicants are required to have a PA license and CDL. More details on the position can be found here.
Applications can be emailed to Smithfield Township’s Roadmaster, Ed McCormack, at ed@smithfieldtownship.com or dropped off at the Municipal Center located at 1155 Red Fox Road, East Stroudsburg 18301.
APPLICATION

Register Unsheltered Vehicles

Unsheltered, unregistered vehicles can pose a danger to public safety, health, and wellbeing. According to Smithfield Township’s ordinance regarding the storage of motor vehicles, if you are in possession of up to two unregistered vehicles, as long as one is used for parts, it is permitted for up to six months. However, more than two vehicles are not allowed to remain unsheltered for more than 10 days. If your unregistered vehicle is out of the public eye, it is permitted. Options to shelter the vehicle include building a fence, wall, or barricade or planting trees and shrubs along the property to hide it from public eye.
To register your vehicle you will need the following:

  • A motor vehicle registration license plate
  • A current inspection sticker

To report an unregistered vehicle, please contact our Zoning Officer, Ken Wolfe, at Smithfield Township at (570) 223-5082 ext. 2.

ORDINANCE

Smithfield Township Municipal Center
CLOSED Friday, April 15th
in observance of Good Friday.
We will reopen Monday, April 18th,
from 7 AM to 4:30 PM.

Thank you! 

Community Garden Plots Available

The Community Garden is a free and excellent opportunity to exercise your “green thumb” while meeting members of the Smithfield community! Located at Smithfield Township’s Waterfront Park on Twin Falls Road in East Stroudsburg, plots are assigned on a first-come, first-served basis.

APPLICATION

Alternative to Taxes?

By Robert Lovenheim

 

The Beatles sang about taxes on their Revolver album (Taxman, 1966). Has anyone since found alternative systems for raising public revenue?

Web guru Jaron Lanier suggests in his book, “Who Owns the Future” that each of us should receive a cash credit from sites like Facebook and Google every time they use the data we supply by our searches and clicks. The credits would be 100ths or 1000ths of a penny, but this could quickly add up. This revenue stream could then be directed at municipalities from the cash credits generated by residents.

That may seem radical but something similar is already in practice; part of the bill we pay each month on cable TV goes to the municipalities in return for the right to operate the franchises. Now, is a revenue stream from internet data collection that different?

You may have seen signs on commercial properties along route 209 in Middle Smithfield saying “LERTA approved.” That stands for “Local Economic Revitalization Tax Assistance.” It is a PA law allowing municipalities to grant a sliding-scale ten-year tax abatement to encourage new businesses to build buildings. Smithfield does not have LERTA authorization because we feel we don’t need it to attract new businesses.

What has rarely been explored as out-of-the-box thinking is whether a municipality can actually partner with a business in a new form of a Public-Private Partnership (PPP). It would probably need the formation of a development authority, much like our Smithfield Sewer Authority, that can do business with greater flexibility than the Township. Instead of tax abatements, the authority would issue tax credits held as equity in the project. The tax credits would earn income, like any investment partner, for the length of the contract, but the municipality would have rights to continue or sell the credits after an agreed-upon length of time.

Remember how the US Government bailed General Motors out of bankruptcy in 2009 and then converted the loan to equity (61% in that case)?  As shares rose, it turned out to be a very good deal for US taxpayers. What I am describing is not so different except the equity invested is tax credits, not cash.

Could it work here in Smithfield? Would it help keep a lid on new taxes? Is it even legal in PA? It may be worth more discussion, and more ideas are welcome.

Smithfield Township’s Reservoir Road is looking for volunteers through
Pick Up The Poconos!
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