SEVEN FIELDS — The borough’s five-member parks and recreation committee resigned this week, citing “consistent” challenges with council support and its budget.

Committee representative Kelly Semanco read a prepared statement for council at its meeting Monday, Dec. 11.

“For the past few years, we have enjoyed serving residents and the local community through our Easter, Halloween and Christmas events,” Semanco said. “As volunteers with full-time jobs and families, we have invested more than 1,000 hours of our collective time planning and executing these events — with little to no support from council and minimal support from the borough manager.”

Semanco said the committee struggled with its current budget of $2,500, and was “disappointed” to discover that budget had been decreased for 2024 after the borough assumed responsibility for the Light Up Night event.

“The fact that the borough was assuming Light Up Night in 2024 was never addressed with us,” she said. “It will be virtually impossible to coordinate three events with a reduced budget of $1,750. This is less than $3 per attendee.”

The committee had decided to organize a Breakfast with Santa in place of Light Up Night for 2023, according to Semanco, based on community feedback from previous years.

“Our budget was cut prior to this even occurring and without consideration for resident feedback,” she said.

Council president Kimberly Regan-Koch said the officials regularly supported and volunteered alongside the committee, with she and vice president Dawn Servello personally donating materials and time to previous events.

She said the borough had already begun to prepare for the third annual Light Up Night ahead of the change.

“They’re a little angered that their budget got cut, but they’re dropping a whole event,” Regan-Koch said.

While council offered the committee the opportunity to meet and discuss their grievances rather than resign, all five members declined.

Council approved the resignations and thanked the committee for its work in the borough.

“I really do want to commend them for their work — it’s been excellent,” she said. “Even as I announced Light Up Night the second year, I made them all come up to introduce them individually to the neighborhood like, ‘These are the people who do this — say thank you.’”

She said the next step would be to advertise for new committee volunteers.

“If we don’t get volunteers, then obviously the committee dies,” she said, “and it’s only been back in existence for three years.”

As the dissolution of the Evans City-Seven Fields Regional Police Department continues, council also formally ratified its police services agreement with Northern Regional Police Department.

Mayor Dean Galitsis said he was “thrilled to be present tonight for this historic vote by borough council.”

“The Northern Regional Police Department brings us more than four dozen full-time officers, personnel and staff; a full-time detective bureau, canine unit, a special response team for high-level incidents and a traffic-enforcement detail which includes a dedicated crash reconstruction and investigation team,” he said.

The department’s officers were present at Light Up Night, according to Galitsis, and he urged residents to greet them as they established their presence in the borough.

Councilman Jeff Smouse was the only dissenting vote, and councilman Morgan Hardesty was absent.

“I’m sure Northern Regional will do a fine job, there’s just been zero public hearing on this,” Smouse said. “And I’m against that from a transparency standpoint.”

Galitsis thanked the council and borough manager Tom Smith for their efforts in establishing the agreement as well as beginning the dissolution of the former regional department.

“Together we recognized that police service was no longer sustainable under the old relationship with Evans City,” he said. “Tom Smith especially has engineered a clean break from that arrangement, which will be finalized in the next few weeks and months.”