Some Greenville residents questioned council Thursday over the borough's decision to seek the expertise of a Pittsburgh labor attorney as it tries to hammer out a new police contract.

"You people can't just sit down and talk with your police department and come to an agreement?" asked resident Ed Cooper, a Greenville Fire Department lieutenant.

Borough solicitor Warren Keck III said he supported the suggestion of Borough Manager Kenneth S. Weaver to consult labor attorney Bruce Campbell on the unresolved contract matter.

"Attorneys don't know everything about everything," Keck said. "You said it (labor negotiating) is not rocket science, but the borough has wound up with some bad contracts in the past."

Negotiating labor contracts, Keck said, is a specialized legal field. Keck said the borough has consulted labor attorneys in the past.

"Our attorney (Keck) is good at a lot of things, but in this case you're going from a normal contract negotiation to a very specialized one. There's people out there who do this for a living," said council Vice President Bryan D. Langietti.

Langietti said the borough has met with Campbell once.

The police department currently has no contract and no negotiations are taking place, Langietti said. The matter is in arbitration, he said.

The department's contract expired at the end of last year, Langietti said.

Teams of negotiators for the borough -- former Borough Manager Peter D. Nicoloff Jr., former council President Bryan Shannon and former council Vice President Michael D'Alfonso -- and the police union had found common ground in their negotiations last year, Langietti said.

"Negotiations went to the point where both teams were in agreement," Langietti said.

But the proposed contract was not backed by council. "In this case, council didn't want to go with it. Council was not satisfied because it wanted a wage freeze and the proposed contract did not call for one," Langietti said.

The cash-strapped borough has convinced employees in all departments to agree to a wage freeze this year.