HONESDALE, PA — The Honesdale Borough Council raced through the 45- minute public portion of its December 8 meeting, as if anxious to get down and dirty in the executive session that followed. It was there that Police Chief Rick Southerton and the council planned to hammer out temporary police duty schedules that fall within the borough’s end-of-year budgetary constraints.

Last month, the council voted to reduce 24/7 police coverage to one-man, weekday patrols during non-holiday weeks. Mayor Jack Bishop, police liaison, said, “That schedule is just not working.” What the council ultimately decides may well depend on December weather forecasts.

Overtime pay for snow removal by department of public works (DPW) employees will further strain already stretched salary lines. And snowstorms usually require additional police presence to oversee increased traffic accidents and sidewalk snow removal enforcement, as Greater Honesdale Partnership Executive Director Gail Tucker pointed out when she asked for routine enforcement of borough ordinances requiring landlords to remove snow from storefront sidewalks. Southerton said that during one recent storm, the force reminded delinquent landlords of their responsibility to have sidewalks cleared within six hours of snowfall’s end, and that one landlord was ticketed for failure to comply.

Also, Bill Canfield introduced a resolution to end the borough’s recycling program, saying that new recycling procedures combined with the willingness of most private refuse haulers to handle recyclables has made the borough’s responsibility largely redundant.