{"id":147425,"date":"2026-02-02T22:12:52","date_gmt":"2026-02-03T03:12:52","guid":{"rendered":"https:\/\/www.thevalleyledger.com\/?p=147425"},"modified":"2026-02-02T22:12:52","modified_gmt":"2026-02-03T03:12:52","slug":"house-passes-freeman-bill-to-allow-memorials-for-first-responders","status":"publish","type":"post","link":"https:\/\/www.thevalleyledger.com\/?p=147425","title":{"rendered":"House passes Freeman bill to allow memorials for first responders"},"content":{"rendered":"<p><strong>HARRISBURG, Feb. 2 \u2013<\/strong>\u00a0The Pennsylvania House of Representatives today unanimously passed legislation written by Rep. Robert Freeman that would allow boroughs, third-class cities, and most counties to establish memorials for first responders.<\/p>\n<p>\u201cCurrently, these municipalities and counties are allowed to maintain memorials for soldiers. However, there is no clear authorization for first responders&#8217; memorials, which could include firefighters, emergency medical technicians, paramedics, emergency vehicle drivers and police officers,\u201d said Freeman, D-Northampton. \u201cFirst responders are there whenever we need them in an emergency and they deserve to be honored by their communities.\u201d<\/p>\n<p>Freeman\u2019s legislation (H.B.1738) also would update current language regarding soldiers&#8217; memorials to include men and women who served in the Pennsylvania National Guard or any of the U.S. Armed Forces or their reserve components.<\/p>\n<p>Examples of third-class cities include Allentown, Bethlehem, Easton, Erie, Harrisburg, Hazleton, Lancaster, Lebanon, Wilkes Barre and York.<\/p>\n<p>The Pennsylvania State Association of Boroughs and the Pennsylvania Municipal League support the legislation.<\/p>\n<p>The bill moves to the state Senate for consideration.<\/p>\n<p>Information provided to TVL by:<br \/>\n<i>Tom Andrews<\/i><\/p>\n","protected":false},"excerpt":{"rendered":"<p>HARRISBURG, Feb. 2 \u2013\u00a0The Pennsylvania House of Representatives today unanimously passed legislation written by Rep. Robert Freeman that would allow boroughs, third-class cities, and most counties to establish memorials for &hellip; <a href=\"https:\/\/www.thevalleyledger.com\/?p=147425\" class=\"more-link\">Continue reading <span class=\"screen-reader-text\">House passes Freeman bill to allow memorials for first responders<\/span> <span class=\"meta-nav\">&rarr;<\/span><\/a><\/p>\n","protected":false},"author":2,"featured_media":115768,"comment_status":"closed","ping_status":"closed","sticky":false,"template":"","format":"standard","meta":{"_acf_changed":false,"_jetpack_memberships_contains_paid_content":false,"footnotes":"","jetpack_publicize_message":"","jetpack_publicize_feature_enabled":true,"jetpack_social_post_already_shared":true,"jetpack_social_options":{"image_generator_settings":{"template":"highway","enabled":false},"version":2}},"categories":[482],"tags":[],"class_list":["post-147425","post","type-post","status-publish","format-standard","has-post-thumbnail","hentry","category-press-release-2"],"jetpack_publicize_connections":[],"acf":[],"jetpack_featured_media_url":"https:\/\/www.thevalleyledger.com\/wp-content\/uploads\/2023\/01\/HARRISBURG-copy.jpg","jetpack_sharing_enabled":true,"_links":{"self":[{"href":"https:\/\/www.thevalleyledger.com\/index.php?rest_route=\/wp\/v2\/posts\/147425"}],"collection":[{"href":"https:\/\/www.thevalleyledger.com\/index.php?rest_route=\/wp\/v2\/posts"}],"about":[{"href":"https:\/\/www.thevalleyledger.com\/index.php?rest_route=\/wp\/v2\/types\/post"}],"author":[{"embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/www.thevalleyledger.com\/index.php?rest_route=\/wp\/v2\/users\/2"}],"replies":[{"embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/www.thevalleyledger.com\/index.php?rest_route=%2Fwp%2Fv2%2Fcomments&post=147425"}],"version-history":[{"count":0,"href":"https:\/\/www.thevalleyledger.com\/index.php?rest_route=\/wp\/v2\/posts\/147425\/revisions"}],"wp:featuredmedia":[{"embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/www.thevalleyledger.com\/index.php?rest_route=\/wp\/v2\/media\/115768"}],"wp:attachment":[{"href":"https:\/\/www.thevalleyledger.com\/index.php?rest_route=%2Fwp%2Fv2%2Fmedia&parent=147425"}],"wp:term":[{"taxonomy":"category","embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/www.thevalleyledger.com\/index.php?rest_route=%2Fwp%2Fv2%2Fcategories&post=147425"},{"taxonomy":"post_tag","embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/www.thevalleyledger.com\/index.php?rest_route=%2Fwp%2Fv2%2Ftags&post=147425"}],"curies":[{"name":"wp","href":"https:\/\/api.w.org\/{rel}","templated":true}]}}