By DAVID O’CONNOR, Staff
Veteran Salisbury Township official Les Houck is in Hershey this week, but don't expect him to be taking a tour of the chocolate plant.
Instead, with "many, many issues" for municipal leaders like him to grapple with, he can be found in many of the 100-plus seminars being offered at a statewide townships convention in Chocolatetown.
But Houck is glad to be a part of the process for the Pennsylvania State Association of Township Supervisors, which is meeting in Hershey through Wednesday.
He was officially elected today as second vice president of PSATS, which represents nearly 1,500 townships statewide.
And the statewide conference is what the much-respected Houck calls "an educational process, a training process" that's important to local municipal officials.
Houck, 64, who has served in Salisbury Township for 36 years, is both an elected supervisor and also secretary-treasurer for the township.
With the statewide organization, Houck is scheduled to become PSATS president in 2012, as long as he has "the health and the willingness to do it," he said Monday.
He will serve a two-year term as second vice president of PSATS and then two as first vice president before he's expected to become its president.
Some 4,500 township officials from across Pennsylvania are meeting this week in Hershey.
Along with attending as many sessions as he can, Houck has moderated a seminar on the effect of the emergency-services tax on municipalities, and another on understanding the state's dog law and kennel regulations.
This week's is the 86th annual conference, being held in Hershey for the 25th straight year.
In his years with the statewide organization, Houck in 2001 became the first from Lancaster County to win the prestigious "President's Leadership Award."
Houck was honored for working to make two intersections safer for drivers and upgrading a sewer district.
He also served as secretary-treasurer of PSATS two years ago.
He also is secretary of the countywide townships organization, representing the 40 second-class townships here.
Houck moved to Salisbury in 1967. He chaired the township's planning commission for two years, starting in 1972, and has served as a supervisor ever since.
Houck and his wife Faye have two children and four granddaughters.
He said at the time of his 2001 award that "road building and maintenance were the main things" when he started as a supervisor, but these days "there's a whole gamut of things, like parks and sewers."
