Click here to subscribe today or Login.
Warrior Run, Sugar Notch already share services, and joining forces easier than for other municipalities.
WARRIOR RUN – Of the three police regionalization proposals under discussion in the Wyoming Valley, the smallest may be the first one completed.
That’s because, in part, the boroughs of Warrior Run and Sugar Notch already share a great deal – and the joining of their departments is the easiest to achieve, according to Joseph Boyle of the Pennsylvania Economy League.
PEL is helping both municipalities with planning and budgeting of the proposal.
Until about six months ago, the two departments shared the same police chief, according to Warrior Run Council President Robert Daylida.
The borough’s police force, with a budget allocation of $33,600 for 2008, consists of three part-time officers. Sugar Notch has Chief Chris Pelcher and three part-time officers.
Officials have proposed a fund-raising organization to help meet some of the costs related to the force.
One aspect of uniting the two forces would be the three-year grant from the state that comes with a merged regional force.
Other regional plans, such as the South Valley Nanticoke-Newport Township-Hanover Township proposal, and the Wyoming Region plan, which now has effectively been reduced to West Pittston and Exeter only, are still far from being approved.
Nanticoke Mayor John Bushko has some concerns with the South Valley plan. Three Wyoming region municipalities – Exeter Township and West Wyoming and Wyoming boroughs – have dropped out from the original list in the Wyoming Region proposal.
A public meeting is planned regarding the South Valley project in January, and Boyle expects the Exeter-West Pittston talks to resume next year.
In both cases, discussions have to involve the Fraternal Order of Police, which represent unionized officers.
Sugar Notch and Warrior Run have no FOP involvement in staffing.
In the case of the two boroughs, Boyle noted the PEL had a strict mandate that costs should not exceed what each municipality is currently paying. The figures the PEL, along with consultant Bryan Ross, retired chief of Upper Pottsgrove Township Police, presented to both borough councils in a November work session met that stipulation.
The result should be better police coverage.
Policing studies have shown municipalities with part-time staff often lose out on follow-up police response. Part-time officers sometimes have conflicts with court appearances related to charges filed, and they also juggle the hours they work with other municipalities.
Ross noted the boroughs get a professional-level police service, with much wider hours of coverage, at a cost they could never manage on their own.
A draft agreement for the joint service has been provided to both boroughs, and their solicitors are reviewing the content and the language of the proposed agreement. But in Warrior Run, there is clear support for the move from Mayor Luke Matthews and council members.
“I can’t see it as being anything but an advantage,” Council President Daylida said recently.
Matthews also spoke positively about the process at a recent meeting, saying the meeting between the two boroughs to discuss the matter seemed to have gone well – a view PEL’s Boyle also shared.
Warrior Run expects the issue to come up for a formal vote early next year, if no significant concerns arise, which would mean an exceptionally fast agreement, as Matthews noted.