Brownsville’s new councilman, mayor settling in
Mike Tony | Herald-Standard
Paul Synuria (right), Brownsville Borough Council’s newest member, rallied against disbanding borough police this summer along with (from left) his son Sabastian and wife, Lisa, when council was considering doing so.
Swords
Paul Synuria had been a presence that couldn’t be missed at recent Brownsville council meetings, criticizing council members who voted in August to advertise an ordinance disbanding borough police and livestreaming meetings on Facebook with his cellphone.
Now Synuria will be on the other side of the table, having been appointed to council on Jan. 2 to fill the seat vacated by Ross Swords, who became mayor.
“I wanted to make sure council didn’t have one side stronger than the other,” Synuria, 51, said.
A site coordinator at Fayette Resources, Synuria looks forward to filling the remainder of Swords’s unexpired term, which extends through the end of 2019.
“When I sit down at the table, it’s about Brownsville,” Synuria said.
Synuria vocally supported maintaining the Brownsville Police Department amid council’s consideration of its disbandment last year. Two write-in candidates, previous Mayor Lester Ward and incumbent council member Tracy Sheehan Zivkovich, won seats on council while opposing disbandment as well, while former council member Brenda Bush, who voted in favor of disbandment, lost her on-the-ballot bid to stay on council.
“I don’t want to say Brownsville would get worse (without a borough police department), but it would not get better,” Synuria said. “With police in Brownsville, we can work towards bettering Brownsville because we have police protection that’s not a half hour away.”
Council voted by a 4-3 count at an Aug. 15 meeting to advertise an ordinance that would disband its borough police department, which consists of two full-time and three part-time officers, effective Jan. 1, 2018, a move that would make state police in Belle Vernon solely responsible for covering the borough from that point on.
Sgt. John Thacik, patrol section supervisor at state police in Belle Vernon, noted at an August meeting to discuss police and street services that state police’s average response time from the Belle Vernon barracks to Brownsville is 32 minutes.
Despite voting to do so in August, council never advertised an ordinance to disband borough police.
Jack Lawver remains council president, joined by Ward as vice president. Synuria will succeed Swords as public services committee chair, overseeing all finances concerning the police department and mutual aid agreements with other municipalities.
Jim Lawver, who advocated for more funding for street improvements in the 2018 budget, will become chair of the street department.
Synuria was one of two applicants for the seat vacated by Swords, which was also sought by former Mayor Lewis Hosler, Jack Lawver said.
Swords, 33, is a conductor for Norfolk Southern and served five years on council prior to becoming mayor, having narrowly defeated fellow council member Jim Lawver in the May primary mayoral race.
Swords said he will work as mayor to improve police protection in the borough by making officer schedules more staggered and unpredictable, also prioritizing finding more funding opportunities through grants for equipment and hiring of officers in addition to revamping the borough K-9 unit.
Swords also floated the possibility of forming a regionalized police department with nearby municipalities, adding that he had spoken with newly elected West Brownsville Mayor Lindsey Bennett about Brownsville and West Brownsville joining together to do so.
“Somebody needs to take the first step to regionalize,” Swords said.
Brownsville’s council meetings will be held on the second Wednesday of each month at 6 p.m. going forward, a change from its previous meeting time of the second Tuesday of each month at 7 p.m.