Oct 8, 2014 4 min read

There are other contenders, to be sure, but if there were a prize for the local government in our area that seems most intent on jumping regularly from the frying pan into the fire, it might just go to the folks in East Washington.

A little recent history:

Our readers no doubt recall the long, torturous process through which the leaders of East Washington ultimately ended up doing next to nothing with the borough’s police department.

A study on how to improve the local department was launched after the borough’s police chief was arrested for extortion and an East Washington officer was shot to death during a traffic stop.

As the process wove this way and that, borough officials pondered a proposal from the city of Washington to provide police coverage to its neighbor. The city plan not only would have provided the borough with policing by better-trained and better-equipped officers, but would have saved the borough a lot of money in the process.

The city’s offer ultimately was abandoned, and the borough then approached South Strabane Township to see if it would consider providing police services. South Strabane wasn’t interested.

When all was said and done, borough council decided to maintain the local police department, which is staffed largely by part-timers.

Next up was the brouhaha over the borough’s ridiculously misguided and overzealous approach to forcing the citizenry to fix the curbs along their properties. After an uprising led by a local church and joined by some residents, the borough backed off.

Now, Mayor Michael Gomber has floated the idea of reopening the 10-year contract for fire protection that the borough signed with the city of Washington just three years ago.

Under the deal, East Washington residents are receiving coverage from a professional, well-equipped department for an annual pricetag of around $60,000 – about the cost of paying one city firefighter for a year. It’s a great deal for the borough, but Gomber, based on his comments at Monday night’s council meeting, wants to renegotiate or try to get out of the contract, even though legally he doesn’t appear to have a leg to stand on. He’s suggesting that the borough might reach out to get a proposal from South Strabane Township, whose department has just a couple of paid firefighters, supplemented by volunteers.

Gomber seemed to find an ally in Councilwoman Tamara Chacko, who said – and we’re not making this up – “We do not get (any reports) from them presently for what they have done for us in the borough. I personally have never seen a fire truck in this borough, except maybe on Halloween. How much do they actually do here?”

Let us explain: The city fire department is on call – 24 hours a day, seven days a week, 365 days a year – to respond quickly and professionally to fires and other emergencies in the borough, which it does. We’re not sure if Chacko would like the department to dispatch a fire truck to make daily rounds of the borough, with firefighters on the lookout for puffs of smoke or kittens lodged in trees, but we can tell her that despite all the taxes we pay to the federal government, nobody here at the newspaper has seen an Army tank or Air Force fighter jet in our neighborhoods. Are they really protecting us?

Fortunately, other members of council balked at Gomber’s idea, so we hope that it will be quickly forgotten.

If the leaders of East Washington want to do something that really would be beneficial, they should pursue a full consolidation with the city of Washington and quit shooting themselves in the feet.

We’ll not hold our breath.