Coaldale Borough Council has declined a request to continue as a part of a regional recreation commission.

Two representatives from the Eastern Schuylkill Recreation Commission visited the board on Tuesday to ask them to reconsider leaving the regional board.The committee includes Middleport, Rush, Schuylkill, Walker and West Penn townships, the Tamaqua YMCA, and the Tamaqua Area School District.Executive director Sarah Connely asked council members if they would rejoin the commission, or possibly meet to discuss it in the future.Coaldale had contributed to the commission for more than a decade up until this year. In 2015, they appropriated $2,500 for ESRC.Council member Angela Krapf, a member of the recreation board, said in all, the borough had given more than $30,000 in taxpayer to ESRC and had little to show for it."We would rather take their tax dollars and put it toward something instead of give it away when we're not seeing anything in return. We all talked about it, and it's been a long time that Coaldale hasn't benefited at all from it. That's our reason. it wasn't because of budgets," Krapf said.Council will allow ESRC to continue to use the borough's volleyball courts - which were installed by ESRC - for its summer league.Tamaqua Borough Council President Micah Gursky urged the board to give ESRC another chance.He said grants are typically given to the municipalities that regularly attend board meetings."One of the challenges of the organizations, there are two representatives form each municipality a council member and a citizen. The people who show up at the meetings, obviously those are the things that are talked about," Gursky said.