Evans City makes amendments to police charter agreement
EVANS CITY — Borough council OK’d an amendment to its police services charter agreement with the borough of Seven Fields in an attempt to accelerate the dissolution of the Evans City-Seven Fields Regional Police Department.
This amendment removed a section of the charter that required both parties to give a year’s notice before dissolving the department.
“We’re getting rid of that one-year requirement,” said Mark Widdersheim, Evans City council member, at the meeting Monday, Oct. 2. “So we can basically say we’re going to dissolve at any time. Now we can speed things up.”
The Evans City-Seven Fields joint police agreement remains in effect, but the boroughs have started the process of dissolving the department and seeking new partners after years of disagreements between the two sides over how the department should be operated.
That was the second of two amendments made by borough council Monday night. The first was an amendment to remove a section of the charter requiring all police services employees to return to employment with their previous municipality after the dissolution of the partnership.
There are only two full-time officers left in the Evans City-Seven Fields Regional Police Department. Widdersheim added that the municipalities are trying to negotiate buyout packages for both the officers.
The two amendments to the charter will not become official until Seven Fields’ borough council also approves them.
While Seven Fields has already reached an agreement to receive police services from the Northern Regional Police Department in Wexford, Evans City has tried to strike a deal to receive police services from Jackson Township. In return, Jackson Township is looking to obtain more than 130 acres of property around the reservoir near Lindsay Road.
Officials from Jackson Township have previously indicated that they intend to turn the property into a public park.
However, negotiations on that front have been slow. According to Evans City Mayor Dean Zinkhann, virtually no progress has been made over the past month.
“It’s all in the talking stages,” Zinkhann said. “And we’re not sure if we want to sell it or not. We are not in any stage at all to talk police and buying or selling property.”
Cheri Deener, Evans City council president, added that talks between them and Jackson Township have stalled.
“The way the talks were going ... basically, we said, ... We haven’t talked about police services at all,” Deener said. “We’ve talked more about the reservoir, and we need public safety first before we talk leisure activities, and that’s where we left it.”
There was an item on Monday night’s agenda to hire someone to formally appraise the reservoir property. However, the council decided to table that idea.
Evans City has also sent feelers out to Mars, Adams Township and Zelienople about police services.
