Upper Mac Municipal Business To Resume Tuesday

Upper Macungie Township officials expect municipal business to resume Tuesday morning following the

Township employees were in the building and working at the time of the 8 a.m. accident. None were injured.

Township supervisors made the decision to close the municipal building and send employees home for the day immediately following the fatal accident.

"It's a sad day in Upper Macungie Township. Our prayers and sympathies are with the deceased and her family," said supervisor Sam Ashmar.

Ashmar was fortunate that he wasn't  sitting in his office at the township's municipal building at 8 a.m. Monday morning. The Parkland school bus driven by Smith swerved across Schantz Road and hit the building directly into Ashmar's office window.

"Everyone is in total agreement that if he'd been in the office, he would have suffered a serious injury," said Upper Macungie supervisor chairman Edward Earley. "Sam's office is in shambles."

"It's not about me. I was on the road on business at the time," Ashmar said. "I'm not usually in the office at that time of the day. When I heard about it, my primary concern was if there were any children on the bus. Now our main concern is about the structural integrity of the building."

Earley said preliminary estimates of the damage to the building is likely in the $300,000 to $400,000 range. Township officials were awaiting the arrival of an insurance adjuster at midday Monday while engineers and township employees continued to assess the integrity of the physical structure.

Both Earley and Ashmar said contingency plans are in place for operational phone lines and temporary trailers to be set up at the 8330 Schantz Road location Tuesday, should it be necessary.

"We'll have business phone line active here tomorrow," Ashmar said.

houses all local government offices of the township in addition to the Lehigh County Tax office. The Sewer Authority, Zoning Office, Planning Commission, Open Records, Recreation Board and Bureau of Fire all conduct business in the building.

A satellite office of State Senator Pat Browne is also on site and open for business at the location three days per week. Earley said part of Browne's office was damaged as a result of the accident.

Monday night's scheduled Planning Board workshop session was canceled. The next scheduled meeting at the municipal building is Wednesday night's Planning Board public session.