In an article printed in the Times News on Monday, members of the Lehighton Borough Council discussed the shortage of crossing guards within the Borough of Lehighton. In the article, council members Ryan Saunders and Autumn Abelovsky indicated they would be attending the Lehighton School District’s Workshop on June 13; however, nobody from the borough was at the workshop.

“Originally, I had received an email from Autumn from the borough requesting to visit with us,” Joy Beers said. “According to a Times News article, they were going to be attending tonight’s meeting. The email that was sent to the (school) board, said, ‘can we discuss this at the meeting on the 13th?’ And I responded that sounds fine, and we put it on the agenda.”

Currently, the Lehighton School District pays 60% of the cost of the crossing guards, and the Borough of Lehighton pays 40%.

“My issue is,” school board member Barbara Bowes said, “if we took it over … if people don’t show up, the borough has the police that can be there. We don’t have that.”

“They’re having discussions there, we’re having discussions here,” Beers said, “and alternating remarks are made toward the other group, that we each wish the other would do something different; however, that discussion is not actually happening.”

Bowes said that some borough residents are considering a petition about the crossing guard issue.

“I think the solution is to reach back out to Autumn and find out when we can actually talk,” Beers said. “We’d like to resolve the issue and come up with a good solution for the community.”