SHENANDOAH — The borough council held a special meeting April 25 and approved the hiring of three full-time police officers. The new officers are John Buchinsky, Joshua Pastucka and David Stametz.
“We went into executive session on personnel, came out into the public part and motioned to hire them,” council President Donald E. Segal said. “The vote was 7-0.”
Segal said one hiring was to fill the vacancy open with the resignation of Capt. Michael O’Neill, who left to enter the Pennsylvania State Police Academy. The other two were to bring the police department to five full-time officers.
The other full-time officers are Police Chief George Carado and Lt. Gary Keppel. Segal said there is no captain rank with the hirings.
“We’ll just have the chief, lieutenant and the patrolmen,” Segal said.
Pastucka and Stametz were working as part-time borough patrolmen, and were also employed as part-time officers with West Mahanoy Township. At their April 19 meeting, the township supervisors voted to make both officers full-time and promote Pastucka to police chief to fill the vacancy left by Chief Shawn Tray, who resigned to enter the state police academy.
On Wednesday, township Secretary Michael Michalik said the township received the written resignation from Pastucka and is expecting a similar letter from Stametz.
“We received the letter of resignation from Joshua this morning,” Michalik said.
“I don’t blame them. It’s more money,” township Chairman Paul “Pepper” Martin said. “They put us in a tough situation, but we have to do what we have to do.”
West Mahanoy currently has one full-time police officer, Raymond Tonkinson, and part-time officers.