The West Penn Township supervisors held an executive session July 21 to discuss possible litigation relating to a new mutual aid agreement the township’s fire company has in Tamaqua.

The agreement involves the West Penn Township fire company’s lease of equipment and space from the East End Fire Company in Tamaqua.

In the spring, East End was removed from service by Tamaqua borough for “emergency reasons.”

On July 18, the West Penn fire company announced the agreement — which includes taking on about 20 East End volunteer firefighters.

“It’s not litigation yet,” board Chairman Tony Prudenti said when asked for more information about the executive session. “It’s just to head it off at the pass.”

Township solicitor Paul Datte explained that the meeting was called after “there was some suggestion” that Tamaqua borough might terminate the mutual aid agreement.

During public comment, former supervisor Glenn Hummel said he was concerned about the liability to the township with West Penn’s lease of the East End.

He also asked supervisors if they were aware of the lease agreement before it was solidified.

“No, we found out about it through social media,” Prudenti said.

Prudenti explained that after learning of the agreement, supervisors met with West Penn Fire Chief Jeff Bradford.

“The fire chief felt he could do this without coming to our board, which is fine, but every action causes a reaction,” Prudenti said.

Hummel said he believed that any offer of help to the East End by West Penn was a “good idea” but said he was concerned about response time from the “new” station in Tamaqua. He felt that bringing the leased equipment to West Penn would better serve the area.

“For the last 15 or so years, probably longer than that, we’ve relied on East End Fire Company coming down here. Nothing changed other than they’re now members of West Penn,” Bradford said.

Bradford added that the agreement is a “no money” lease and won’t cost the fire company or the township.

Datte then noted that the executive session was held because supervisors were concerned after hearing from Tamaqua’s solicitor that the mutual aid agreement is “potentially problematic.”

According to Datte, supervisors requested information from Bradford, including training certificates for volunteers. The board is also researching the lease agreement, workers’ compensation and liability and Datte has been in touch with the attorney who prepared the lease agreement.

“What I’m trying to say is, give us another meeting” to hash out the information, Datte said.