Lansford Borough Council wants to explore police regionalization once again, as it continues to wrestle with a number of police issues, including hiring and the possibility of a new police station.

Councilwoman Jennifer Staines suggested the move after talking with Nesquehoning’s mayor, who indicated there was still interest in regionalizing, she said Wednesday.

Other council members agreed that other communities, including Coaldale and Summit Hill may also be interested in the idea.

Solicitor Robert Yurchak suggested that council send a letter to see if there is interest in regionalization again.

Resident Tom Vadyak, who has raised complaints about the police in the borough, said that all four towns, Lansford, Coaldale, Summit Hill and Nesquehoning, attempted regionalization in 2007.

One by one, communities pulled out of the proposal after meetings to regionalize with Lansford being the last, he said. But it started with a letter seeing if they were interested.

Council President Bruce Markovich believed it was a good idea to send a letter and see if there was indeed interest, but he wasn’t sold on the state’s regionalization process.

Markovich has been involved in three regionalization studies, he said, and they were a lot of work and didn’t go anywhere.

“Until DCED changes its formula for funding these things, who has to pay the most, I don’t think this is going to go anywhere,” he told council members.

Other communities dropped out before due to the funding structure and having to pay more for police with a regional force, Markovich said.

“It’s going to be the same until they change their funding formula,” he said. “But we can send a letter.”

Police pay

In other police matters, Councilwoman Michele Bartek wanted to increase the rate for part-time officers from $27 an hour to $35 an hour to be more competitive.

Council raised its part-time rate to $27 last month to be more competitive with neighboring communities, as they’re losing officers who can get hours at a higher rate elsewhere.

However, other council members expressed concerns about raising it to $35 an hour, which is higher than the full-time officer’s rate. They believed the police union would file grievances over the matter.

A motion to raise the pay died for a lack of second.

Earlier in the meeting, residents questioned what the borough was doing to hire more police after complaints about the force were raised. The borough currently has four full-time officers, including its chief.

Bartek explained that she wanted to hire more officers, and believed paying part-time officers more money would help bring in more candidates.

“I could deal with 10 part-time officers,” she said. “We don’t give them benefits. They don’t get a vacation. They would not get any health benefits. That would be a big burden off the borough.”

One officer left to work in another community, where he gets $9 more an hour, Bartek said.

“We can’t possibly keep up with Jim Thorpe. Their revenue pool is much greater than ours,” she said.

Bartek said that she was aggravated with the process to hire more officers this year, waiting for the civil service commission to reorganize and then prepare for testing.

But they’re ready now, and the process should move more quickly with the next group of candidates, she said.

The borough’s Civil Service Commission conducted police testing on Saturday, Markovich said. One of two candidates showed up and did not pass the test, he said.

The borough is advertising for both full-time and part-time officers online with the State Chiefs of Police Association.

Police Chief Kyle Woodward said that he received several calls from interested candidates.