The Parryville Borough Council met Monday to discuss playground renovation and the use of the Carbon County Council of Governments.

The council recently received a grant along with local donations to improve and expand the community's playground.The playground currently doesn't offer local children much more than a few swings, Council Vice President Cathy Hawk said.The cost of safely improving this area was the focus of the council. The modern safety precautions for a public park are what makes the process difficult and expensive.To date, the account created for the playground renovation has reached $26,098. The council is now in efforts to seek out an engineer to design the playground along with local residents to join the playground committee.If anyone is interested or has any information, they are asked to contact Sharon Hinkle at

parryvilleboro@gmail.com.Another popular topic of the meeting was the Carbon County Council of Governments and its benefits to local municipalities.The council is a collective group of municipalities working together to save costs on equipment and services for each area.Council member Ralph Washburn explained how recently a problem arose with a drain pipe in Parryville. Since the borough doesn't own a backhoe, they looked to the newly established council for help.Within hours, the Lower Towamensing Township stepped forward and offered the use of their backhoe and other tools to help fix the problem. The process, which would have cost the Parryville borough hundreds of dollars to rent the tools, was basically free.Situations such as this can be solved every day among the municipalities to save money and help find resources. Such resources as finding employees and helping establish grants are also very useful to these townships.Lower Towamensing Supervisor Brent Green joined the council meeting Monday to discuss a grant application by the Parryville Council and approved by the Carbon County Council.The grant money is intended to purchase an asphalt zipper for the borough, a construction tool used for trenching through asphalt quickly and easily.The grant was the first approved by the Carbon County Council to any municipality. The grant is for $100,000 and will be further discussed when the council meets for its monthly meeting.Green said this is only the beginning of the possible achievements of the new council and that they invite other townships to join.The meeting then moved to annual motions to choose borough positions, wages and resolutions.