HARRISVILLE — Borough clerk Doug Cook hauled extra chairs across the floor of the Harrisville Municipal Building on Monday, July 3, as people squeezed into the room, waiting for the meeting to come to order.

Council deliberated a second time in executive session Monday evening on whether to cap the number of police hours at 30 a week, eventually deciding to table the vote, and approved $1,200 toward the Harrisville Police Department’s purchase of a second Taser.

The decision to hold off on further deliberations on police staffing follows a council decision made June 5 in which members voted 5-1 to cap police hours. However, because the discussion was not announced to the public before council voted in executive session, it had to be put back on the agenda before it could legally be considered an official action.

At the meeting, three rows of people, both sitting and standing, faced borough council. To the side of them sat police Chief Jeff Hollidge, who patrols the borough and a portion of Marion Township. Hollidge requested council members reconsider limiting officer hours, and asked for approval to seek applicants for a third police officer.

“We really need help,” Hollidge said. “We really need to hire another officer to handle the workload.”

Hollidge worked seven hours overtime during June, according to police reports read by Mayor Gary Hughes. If approved, the cap of 30 hours a week per officer would be set as a standard, council member Dave Evans said.

“It’s just more so because we’re a part-time police force,” Evans said. “You start putting more hours, then they can come in and say, well, ‘I want health benefits, and I want to be full time’ and then we can get into a legal battle.”

Hollidge said the department’s third officer, Trey Carulli, recently resigned after accepting a full-time position with Franklin Police Department. The vacancy leaves just him and a sergeant.

“I kindly ask that when you’re in executive session this evening talking about police hours and stuff like that, think about the community in general, think about the needs,” Hollidge said. “I work as hard as I can here. I’ve never worked harder in my life.”

There would be some exceptions to the 30-hour limit, such as in the case of a domestic violence incident, Evans said.

“When we make decisions here, it’s nothing personal against you guys or any of the other officers,” council member Gary Wray told Hollidge. “We’re looking kind of like at the citizens, and what we can afford.”

Jason McBride, Marion Township supervisor, also addressed council members, asking them to improve communication between each other and to reconsider capping police hours.

“If you lose what you have, you will not get it back,” McBride said.

“There’s two or three boroughs here in the area that have the same issue with police officers,” Hughes said after reading the police reports. “There’s definitely not enough to go around. Some parts have attempted to have a regional force, and regional forces just don’t seem to pan out either. So we’re all kind of in the same boat when it comes to police and police protection.”

While the decision to put $1,200 toward the cost difference of a Taser was not on the agenda on Monday, council was able to approve the funds the same day because of a legal exception to public safety, said Dennis Very, solicitor for the township.