EVANS CITY — Tempers flared at Monday’s borough council meeting, as crowds supporting the pool expressed outrage over council accessing EDCO Park personnel files.

Cindy Caldwell, park manager, said Lee Dyer, council president, accessed the park’s personnel records, which are stored in the borough office, without the park board’s permission.

“My job requires me to secure our personal files, our clearances, our employees, and I entrusted that to the borough office to be put under lock and key,” she said. “And on at least one occasion that I know of, Mr. Dyer, you violated my obligation to secure that information.”

Caldwell said she was told by borough secretary Nadine Grabe that Dyer had accessed the personnel files after borough solicitor Sean Gallagher requested those records for council review at the April meeting.

“The next morning I contacted Nadine to say we are not allowed to share that information,” she said. “Especially with minors and clearances, they need to sign a release for me to share that with anybody.”

While EDCO Park is an independent entity, the borough pays the insurance for the pool and wanted to ensure that all criminal clearances on personnel were secured, Dyer said Wednesday. At April’s meeting, Caldwell told council all needed clearances were on record.

Caldwell called it an ethics violation and said Dyer had violated the privacy of the park’s employees.

Attorney Mike Gallagher, also the borough’s solicitor and father of Sean, disagreed, saying that what happened was not illegal because the records are stored in the office and that council has an interest in keeping borough children safe.

“Because the files were here, you put on council the responsibility to ensure that there were clearance certificates, to ensure that everybody’s child here was safe,” Gallagher said. “If you couldn’t produce them then they had the right to make sure that they were in those files. You have to make sure those children are safe.”

Caldwell said the law sees it differently.

“When I take those clearances it says right here in this document that it is illegal for me (to release the information),” she said. “According to CPSL (Child Protective Services Law)and 55 PA Code, that I will ensure that they are not shared with anyone else.”

Still Gallagher disagreed.

“Again it’s the township pool,” he said. “We understand EDCO plays an integral piece in our community ... If you’re going to oversee, who’s going to oversee you?”

John Rogers, EDCO Park board president, answered: “We’re our own boss.”

“But you can’t be when it comes to the children,” Gallagher said.

Rogers asked to see a statute that said as much.

“Show me a statute,” Gallagher responded.

Resident Bonnie Gross said she was concerned that her and her son’s privacy was violated.

“I am a former employee. I am a current volunteer and I am a mother of one of the employees of the park,” she said. “And when I heard the rumor that you had gotten into my child’s file and started snooping around to all of the employees, I was extremely upset ...

“You stand here and talk about how you want to protect the youth and yet you feel that you can be above the codes and the laws that are written.”