Coaldale Borough Council was scheduled to meet Tuesday night. It would have been the first meeting since member Harry Hontz Jr. passed away.

But the meeting was unable to go forward with only three members present.Angela Krapf, Claire Remington and Yvonne Stoffey were in attendance.Mike Doerr, Frank Hutta and Tom Keerans were absent.The state requires at least four of the seven members to be present in order for a council meeting to take place.Krapf, the board's president, expressed frustration because the three absent members have each missed about half of the meetings in the last year."After we knew the news about Harry, I was concerned because it consistently was us three ladies and Harry and that was it," she said.Hontz died on March 10 at the age of 58. His term would have been up this year.The board has 30 days from that time to fill his seat, meaning it will have to hold a special meeting. Krapf said that she is hopeful that Hutta will be able to attend the meeting so they have a quorum.Since last May, when Krapf was appointed as council president, Keerans and Hutta have missed about half of the meetings (five of 11) and Doerr has missed all but one. The mayor, Joel Johnson, has also missed four meetings.Krapf said that she looked to see if there was a law to compel them to attend meetings, but the state does not have one on the books right now.In some cases, the absences are justified, Krapf said. Keerans has been unable to attend some meetings for health reasons.Hutta is not running for his seat this year because his business takes him out of the area on a regular basis, Krapf said.Council was still able to operate with only four members at most meetings, but Krapf said it's unfair to the members who do attend.She said it's also unfair to taxpayers who pay council members' salary, which works out to about $75 per month after taxes."We have a seven-person council. Three people are running it and we feel exhausted, but you can't quit, because these people elected you to be here," she said.