Jim Thorpe Borough Council turned down a request last week to change the date of a meeting set up to allow residents to pitch a business plan for reopening a roller skating rink on the bottom floor of Memorial Hall.

Council, last month, set the meeting for April 21, but borough resident Amy Kubishin, who has been spearheading the skating rink proposal, then requested a date change, citing a conflict with the opening night of the Jim Thorpe Independent Film Festival.

“The film festival is a major event in Jim Thorpe and we have a lot of people who will be attending that or are involved with that who would also like to come to the skating rink meeting,” Kubishin told council.

On Thursday, Council President Greg Strubinger said the borough “went to great lengths to schedule the April 21 meeting and accommodate those residents interested in having a voice in the future of the facility.”

“The date conflict was not brought up when we were originally discussing a date for the meeting,” Strubinger said. “We had no reason to think it was a date that would not be OK.”

Jim Thorpe Independent Film Festival organizer Todd Morris said the dates for the event are scheduled a year ahead of time.

“We were not approached about the conflict before picking April 21,” Strubinger added. “Believe it or not, council members have lives outside of serving the borough and we believe we honored their request for a meeting and would like to keep that date.”

The April 21 meeting will begin at 6:30 p.m. in Memorial Hall.

“Our team has come up with multiple business ideas, which include interested potential investors and business partnerships,” Kubishin posted on the Save The Memorial Hall Roller Skating Rink Facebook page. “This could be the beginning of a new generation of Memorial Hall. Our visitors in town will enjoy spending more time here if they have someplace to take their kids. As of now, we do not offer many options for the younger crowd.”

An online petition to save the roller skating rink (https://bit.ly/3q6A7kY) stood at 1,039 signatures as of Wednesday morning.

Council said it was receptive to Kubishin’s request to walk through the rink with potential investors.

While it was formerly used as a roller skating rink for decades, the borough’s current plan for the bottom floor of Memorial Hall is to convert it into a new home for the police department.

Currently, borough office staff and the Jim Thorpe Police Department share a 3,332-square-foot building built in 2008 adjacent to Memorial Hall, a large, two-story borough-owned community center off East Tenth Street.

After a 2016 feasibility study cited concerns over safety and available space given the building’s current layout, the borough has been looking to relocate office staff and police.

One of the study’s recommendations was that the borough renovate Memorial Hall, use one-third of the top floor for office staff while keeping the rest of the space as a community center, and move its police department to the bottom floor, where the roller skating rink was once located.

The borough is expecting $2.5 million in U.S. House of Representatives appropriations money through the help of Congressman Dan Meuser and $1.465 million in U.S. Senate appropriations funds through the help of Sen. Bob Casey to help pay for the project.

“If you put those together, that right there just about takes care of the Memorial Hall project,” Strubinger said. “That is money we wouldn’t have been able to receive otherwise unless we were keeping this as a community resource. A police station is a community resource.”