Franklin Township Board Reviews Plans, Emergency Agreement at April Meeting

When the Brightspeed slot came up on the Franklin Township Board of Supervisors agenda April 2, the telecom company delivered a single word: "none." The entry, listed as "Brightspeed Update – NONE," left supervisors and any residents following broadband progress without new information on fiber deployment timelines, pole-permit status, or service expansion in the township. That silence carries weight: as recently as April 2025, Brightspeed's own announcement noted that fewer than five in ten Pennsylvania residents had access to fiber-optic service, even as the company celebrated connections reaching Gettysburg and New Oxford.

The board did move forward on emergency preparedness. Approval consideration of the Northern Adams Regional Emergency Management Agency's 2026 plan and a related NAREMA truck agreement were on the table. NAREMA, the intergovernmental mutual-aid network with a Franklin Township office in Orrtanna, determines how equipment and personnel flow between member municipalities when storms, floods, or other disasters overwhelm a single jurisdiction. Locking in the annual plan and the truck agreement means the agreement governing what gets deployed to Franklin Township roads and properties during a major weather event is formally set for the year.

Stormwater drew scrutiny as well. The board reviewed a stormwater management plan for 326 Sunset Road, submitted for the Hostetter property. Stormwater decisions in this part of Adams County carry direct downstream consequences: Crooked Creek, which threads through the township's agricultural corridor, is the receiving waterway for drainage from multiple road corridors in that area. A second Crooked Creek Road item, a greenhouse project at 138 Crooked Creek Road tied to the Esh property, also appeared alongside an open millwork and fuel-bid item for the same road. Whether the board imposed conditions on either plan is a critical follow-up question for neighbors already watching that drainage pattern.

Adams Norman appeared on the agenda with a 60-day extension request for a preliminary and final plan. Extensions of this type reset the clock on plan-submission requirements; if granted, Norman has roughly until early June to bring a conforming submission forward or face a lapsed approval.

The most consequential unresolved item may be the sawmill ordinance, forwarded by the Planning Commission and promptly tabled to April 15 for further deliberation. A sawmill ordinance would set standards for noise, operating hours, and environmental management for any facility processing raw timber, affecting agricultural operations where forestry work overlaps with residential neighbors. The township also moved to list a 2018 Kenworth tri-axle and a 1999 Mack on Municibid, the online government surplus auction platform, to recover value from equipment no longer needed for road and snow operations.

The April 15 Planning Commission session is the next public access point. Meetings are held at the Franklin Township building, 55 Scott School Rd., Cashtown, at 7:00 p.m., and include a public comment period. Residents with standing concerns from the April 2 session have four concrete questions worth bringing: what specific plan conditions Adams Norman must satisfy before the extension clock runs out; whether the Hostetter stormwater plan at 326 Sunset Road accounts for drainage flow toward Crooked Creek and any downstream properties; what the 2026 NAREMA plan changes in terms of equipment-sharing thresholds or response protocols versus last year's agreement; and when, precisely, Brightspeed intends to give Franklin Township a real update on deployment progress rather than a placeholder entry that reads "none.