Lansford Borough needs its leaders to change its council’s culture and mend trust issues before being able to tackle their community’s problems, a consultant told borough council Wednesday.

“You have a lot of problems,” Ben Kafferlin, managing partner of Kafferlin Strategies, said. “We have some solutions, and you know your own solutions for that matter.

“We could give you as many policy templates, and revenue options, and expenditure reductions, and technology, and that’s not going to fix the root problem,” he said.

“Because the root problem here, in our opinion, is actually a cultural one,” Kafferlin said. “It’s the fact that nobody here can seem to get along.”

He explained that he basically heard a domestic dispute when he got out of his vehicle outside the borough building with people screaming at each other.

“I’ve seen it in your meetings here where you’re screaming at each other,” Kafferlin said. “That kind of culture is not conducive to governance or any kind of progress.”

He believes his firm, which was hired to undertake the state’s Strategic Management Planning Program, could provide all the recommendations in the world to better the community, but they won’t help.

“They’re not going to change anything because your hearts and minds need to change before you can make any meaningful structural changes,” Kafferlin said.

He likened the human resources aspect to a dynamic family, and the family needs to heal before anything meaningful can happen, he said.

“So, that’s the elephant in the room,” Kafferlin said. “I’m afraid that trust is so broken here that nobody can even communicate in a meaningful way.”

In high trust relationships, someone can say the wrong thing and the other person will still get the meaning, but in low trust relationships, even the most precise wording will be taken the wrong way, he said.

“Even if you tried very precisely and use exact words and went through a mediator, it would still be, ‘Oh, that person has a bad motive,’” Kafferlin explained. “That’s the elephant in the room.

“There’s that kind of resentment has built up to the point where I’m concerned you’re not going to overcome it,” he said.

Kafferlin thanked council members for their service, acknowledged the weight of the responsibility they undertaken and applauded them for caring about their community.

“Having met with everyone on council that’s currently on council, I think I can say that you have the best intentions,” he said. “You may not think that of each other, but I see that. I do believe that you all individually do have the best interest of the borough at heart.”

Kafferlin asked them to seek PEACE, which is an acronym for Positive Energy Activates Constant Elevation.

“I want to print out business cards or something for you, for everyone in the community,” he said. “Put them in your pocket and remember to seek PEACE: Positive Energy that Activates Constant Elevation.”