The East Manchester Township supervisors voted 2-0 at a Tuesday, Nov. 13, meeting to immediately release $26,000 to the Eagle Fire Co. for a truck payment and to release an additional $37,500 pending certain stipulations.
Vice Chairman David Naylor and Supervisor Barry E. Rudisill voted in favor of the motion. Chairman Steven H. Gross Jr. was absent.
The move came after a long discussion at the meeting regarding the township's withholding of a $37,500 donation to the fire company, which serves Mount Wolf and East Manchester Township.
The $26,000 is from the equipment line item in the township's budget. (The truck payment is $23,000, but the supervisors chose to release the budgeted $26,000.)
Naylor said the township had been withholding the funds because of a Northeastern Regional Police investigation into the theft of cash taken from a fire company fundraising event on Mother's Day, and that it had been the township's position to wait until the investigation was complete.