HONESDALE, PA —A minor traffic accident in an alleyway last week sparked action at the November 10 meeting of the Honesdale Borough Council. Although no explosion or fire resulted when a gas meter was struck by a vehicle, the council decided to take the gas company up on its offer to install safety cages around gas meters wherever requested.

Remarking that the accident could have been much worse, fire chief Steve Bates recalled an earlier incident on Church Street in which a vehicle sheared off a gas meter, producing a devastating fire. Not all meters will merit cages; the council will request them only for those meters on commercial and residential properties with traffic flow exposure.

Mayor Jack Bishop introduced the other pressing public safety concern: how to pay for 24/7 police protection in the face of rapidly dwindling financial resources. Asking Bishop to elaborate on his mention of talks with numerous borough residents and police chief Rick Southerton (absent from the meeting), safety chair Bob Jennings said he thought the public, as well as the council, deserved to know what had been discussed in those talks. That prompted council president James Brennan to say that he had instigated the talks by sending letters to Southerton and director of public works Rich Doney, asking both men to explore drastic cost-saving measures for their respective departments.

Among the ideas discussed for the police department were eliminating the third shift, having one-man patrols during the day, and augmenting borough police protection with state trooper assignments. But Bishop said that residents were overwhelmingly opposed to any cuts in police protection, insisting on nothing less than 24/7 coverage. In the end, the council voted to reduce the number of patrol officers from two to one on non-holiday weekdays, through year-end 2014. Bill Canfield cast the only negative vote.

Finance committee chair Scott Smith read aloud the cost of staff salaries and the amount of funds available to meet those costs, noting that funds are so tightly stretched that overtime pay necessitated by as little as one snowstorm could render the borough unable to meet its payroll obligations. In light of that situation, all nonessential expenditures will be postponed until 2015, and the borough has obtained permission from its creditors to make interest-only payments on outstanding debt during November and December, with the understanding that it will pay off the principal in January and February.

The council will hold a special meeting at 6 p.m. on Monday, November 17 to review the proposed 2015 budget and to revisit 2014 budget shortfalls.