Harry Shaffer, an Evans City borough councilman, should re-evaluate his conduct in his role as an elected official.

At the very least, an incident involving he and police officer Mike Kopp can be characterized as conduct unbecoming an elected public official. According to the borough police, Shaffer bumped his chest aggressively against Kopp and cursed at the officer Nov. 12 after asking Kopp whether he had a spare key to the borough building.

Then, to compound his mistake, Shaffer walked out of Monday's council meeting when discussion about the incident began.

Before leaving, Shaffer did deny the allegations against him, questioning why he would provoke the officer. But if Shaffer was truly being wronged by the allegations, he should have been willing to stay in his seat and participate in a calm, rational discussion about what actually had occurred and, perhaps, offer a public apology, if only to try to put the incident quickly to rest.

All members of the council should be able to work constructively with the police on matters that require their joint attention. Council members and police officers also should be willing to speak to each other and ask and answer questions in a respectful way about things affecting the borough, even when an official meeting is not in progress.

It's good that the Nov. 12 incident involving Shaffer and Kopp didn't evolve into a criminal charge of assault, but the incident is a blemish on the borough government nonetheless.

Shaffer should ensure that such an incident doesn't happen again.