A Lehighton borough committee will discuss options for future plans for its police station.

Mayor Clark Ritter brought the matter back to the table for Council discussion this month.

Borough Manager Steve Travers, Ritter and borough police Chief Joe Sparich will meet to share ideas.

Travers said they will look at all of the options, not just building a new police station.

“Our other options are do nothing, do something with the existing building, or look at building a new building,” Travers said. “The reality is a new building is going to cost a lot of money, involve quite a bit, take a lot of time; we want to look at all the options.”

Travers said he believes one of the biggest discussion points needs to be whether it can get the police station accredited.

“There’s no way with the current building we could ever get accredited,” he said. “That’s one of the things we’re going to look at.”

Travers said he’s hopeful that within the next couple of weeks the committee can have its first meeting.

“I’m hoping we can set an agenda for where we can go moving forward,” he said. “I think it’s going to be important for our chief to emphasize what he feels the needs are there.”

Travers explained what he believes his role is in the matter.

“What I need to do is look at what options: If (we’re) doing something with the existing building, and try to identify if there’s anywhere that we currently own that would be a good location if we would build a new building,” he said. “Hopefully in the end, we’ll come out with options: Do nothing, do something, or go big,”

Travers said the current police station is centrally located, and at a perfect location for getting anywhere in town.

Council President Grant Hunsicker said he believes the matter should be discussed by the borough’s police committee.

However, Councilwoman Lisa Perry, who along with Councilman Donnie Rehrig serves on the committee, said she doesn’t believe she should participate in the discussion.

Perry said that neither she, nor Rehrig, are running for re-election.

Hunsicker told Perry she should at least be in on the initial discussion.

Travers said he plans to discuss with Hunsicker about the possibility of having several council members sit on the committee, as both Perry and Rehrig have stated they’re not running again.

Shared facility

Last month, Ritter asked council to consider giving the police department the police bay that the Lehighton Fire Department regained a portion of last year to store fire apparatus.

Ritter said at that time the police department could utilize that portion of the bay to store vehicles, large evidence, and for the overall safety of the police officers.

The fire department utilizes the front half of the bay to store its boat, though which apparatus goes there depends on the seasons, according to fire Chief Pat Mriss.

Mriss said at that time he understood that the police department needs space. The police department is using the back half of the bay.

Mriss added that as a result of Ritter’s request, some of the fire department’s volunteers have already questioned their volunteerism.

Councilman Ryan Saunders said the matter has come up repeatedly among both departments.

Councilwoman Autumn Abelovsky said she didn’t believe the police station was ever sufficient for its needs, whereas the fire department has a station that is sufficient for its needs, and the same needs to be done for police department.

Mriss said he agreed that the police station needs to have appropriate space, just not at the cost of the fire department.

Abelovsky said a resolution of some sort has to be a goal that’s on council’s radar, adding that they’ve been talking about this same issue for many years.