A little over a year ago, Coaldale Borough Council approved buying stun guns for its police department to serve the community.

Today, the community is just plain stunned.

That’s because effective Jan. 1, there wasn’t a police department to use them.

Or the computers.

Or the cruisers.

Or anything else that was linked to a struggling borough’s efforts to maintain a police presence in the small Schuylkill County community.

Coaldale has struggled — as have many other municipalities across the state — to find adequate staff to maintain police services.

In December, Michael Sniscak, who was serving as the person in charge of the department in the absence of naming a police chief, resigned for “other career opportunities.”

Sniscak took over in September and assumed the additional duties without a change in title or salary.

Joseph Krebs held the Coaldale chief’s position but resigned in September to take a job with the Tamaqua Police Department.

In addition, Kevin Soberick, resigned his post as a part-time officer in December in addition to his capacities as borough emergency management coordinator and assistant chief of the Coaldale Fire Department. Soberick also reportedly found employment elsewhere.

In addition, another officer was scheduled to retire.

With all the vacancies, the borough had few options.

Relying on adjacent municipalities wasn’t one, especially since Lansford, Nesquehoning and Summit Hill aren’t in the greatest condition when it comes to police staffing.

In fact, across the commonwealth’s more than 2,500 municipalities, state police provide full-time coverage in about 1,300 of them. Coaldale is the latest to join those ranks.

They respond in the borough and other places when local police aren’t available.

State police do exceptional work. But they don’t enforce ordinances, parking issues or noise complaints.

What happened in Coaldale is a harbinger of what could be throughout the Panther Valley if local governments choose the status quo.

The option — should the communities choose it — is to regionalize.

It’s been studied and proposed for years.

And if those studies were grant money, the area would have enough cash to have Cadillacs for cruisers.

Recently, a Lansford councilwoman approached other Panther Valley communities about pooling their police resources on a regional basis.

It won’t happen overnight, but it’s a common-sense approach to solve a problem common to all four boroughs.

It could work something like this:

A regional authority of representatives from each of the anchor municipalities would “own” the department. Their pooled tax money could be the start, supplemented with grants — sought as a single unit, instead of the four towns competing for the same cash.

Lawmakers at state and federal levels would jump at the chance to help.

A single officer could investigate crimes across county lines — which is allowed in a regional setting.

They’d operate in zones and help each other in investigations.

For starters, the governments could rebrand cruisers and pick a common headquarters. They’d bring existing equipment and firearms to start. Computers and reporting methods to share information are already available.

There would be one chief — maybe some detectives, too.

Competitive salaries could entice and keep quality officers in the community.

But mostly, there would be boots on the ground in the streets to fight crime and enforce ordinances.

It could grow from there, selling units of service to surrounding boroughs and townships.

The possibilities are endless.

Coaldale Council President Claire Remington said there are some perspectives for police protection in the borough.

There are rumblings about purchasing coverage from neighboring Tamaqua, which has full-time coverage and is building a new police station.

Remington said the borough is hoping to rebuild its police department. That’s not an easy task, given that policing has changed while the methods of paying for it have stagnated.

Coaldale could take the lead in exploring a regional police force in earnest as part of that rebuilding process.

The four municipalities already share a school district.

Some work together, providing water and sewer services.

In the Blueprint Communities program for the next 10 years, they’ll share common goals to revitalize and rebuild for the future.

In that spirit, why not work on police coverage, too?

Otherwise, any one of the local boroughs could be waking up like Coaldale did on Jan. 1.

That’s a New Year’s hangover nobody wants to deal with.

ED SOCHA | tneditor@tnonline

Ed Socha is a retired newspaper editor with more than 40 years’ experience in community journalism. Reach him at tneditor@tnonline.com.

The foregoing opinions do not necessarily reflect the views of the Editorial Board or Times News LLC.