SEVEN FIELDS — Borough council voted Monday, Oct. 9, to amend its police services charter with Evans City, effectively allowing the municipalities to vote to dissolve the Evans City-Seven Fields Regional Police Department at any time.

“This developed after Evans City’s meeting last week where they took this action first,” solicitor Megan Turnbull said.

At Evans City’s Oct. 2 meeting, borough council approved an amendment waiving a required year’s notice before both municipalities could vote to dissolve the department.

The amendment could not take effect without similar approval by Seven Fields.

Seven Fields’ council took the matter to executive session Monday, returning to unanimously approve it with Turnbull’s recommendation.

Turnbull said the amendment would still be “subject to finalization and negotiation” with Evans City during the Evans City-Seven Fields Regional Police Commission meeting next month.

“We have aligned ourselves with the motion that Evans City has made to dissolve the time constraints of the charter,” said council President Kimberly Regan-Koch.

Following the vote, council also considered a second amendment to add language in the charter requiring all police services employees to return to employment with their previous municipality following dissolution. Evans City also approved this amendment at their Oct. 5 meeting.

Chief Joe McCombs and Sgt. Donald Meyers are the only remaining full-time officers with the department.

Council member Jeff Smouse made a failed motion to table the amendment, receiving no second from the council.

The amendment then passed with Smouse voting ‘no’ and the absence of council member Michael Trotta.

Smouse did not return a request for comment.

Like the amendment before it, Turnbull said it would need to be finalized in cooperation with Evans City.

Representatives from both municipalities recently met Oct. 5 to work mutually toward dissolution, marking the regional police commission’s first meeting since April.

A month before that, Seven Fields accepted a $650,000 proposal by the Northern Regional Police Department of Wexford to become the borough’s full-time police department until 2028.

“We have a contractual amount, both sides have agreed,” Regan-Koch said, “but we need to move forward with the dissolution of this department before we can enter into contractual services with Northern Regional.”

Evans City also has been actively seeking a new police partner with neighboring municipalities.

While the commission has no set date for its next meeting, Regan-Koch said the members plan to meet in Seven Fields.

“We do plan to meet in the first week of November,” she said.