CLARKS SUMMIT – During March’s Council meeting, Clarks Summit Police Chief Chris Yarns informed council members that two part-time police officers resigned leaving one officer working an overnight shift.
He said that the police department has been working on ideas to fill these openings.
Councilman Frank Besten replied, “I don’t think any police officer in this borough should be left alone at any point, at any time, only when on duty. I think it’s our responsibility as a council to start thinking out of the box and instead of thinking, ‘let’s hire another one, let’s hire another one’, that’s not working. It hasn’t worked in years.”
Besten recommended that the number of officers losing their lives is in the hundreds from 2022 to 2023.
“I don’t want it to happen here,” he said. “So, we all have to try to start working together.”
Yarns replied that there is a class for investigation and interrogation, which two officers have been taking from the state police. He also said that a couple of people are taking a class of patrolling techniques classes funded by the district attorney.
In other business:
• Council voted to award the bid for the manhole replacement on Hemlock Street to Stafursky Paving Company in the amount of $19,350.
• Borough Manager Virginia Kehoe described the IPMC (International Property Maintenance Code) appeal panel, which is a group of three people who will hear the appeal of a building inspector. She said that if residents don’t agree with an inspection, they can appeal the decision. She said that Clarks Summit has three people (Joe Guzek, Bob Bennett and Artie Frank) on the panel but Clarks Green and South Abington Township don’t have one.
“We are allowed to joint this panel,” she said. “This suggestion is one from South Abington, one from Clarks Green and one from Clarks Summit. I thought that would be better for us and for them.”
In his solicitor’s report, Andrew Krowiak said that he spoke with solicitor Edmund Scacchitti about Ransom Township having their own police force. He said that Ransom Township doesn’t want to pay the higher rate for a senior officer.
“The second major sticking point is that they (Ransom Township) want to have a struck-bond say in the scheduling of that officer obviously with Chief Yarns’ approval,” he said. “Those were the two main points that he (Scacchitti) and Attorney O’Brien were going back and forth on.”
Council president Gerrie Carey said that until Ransom Township meets Clarks Summit’s specifications, they can’t move forward with giving them a police force.
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