Lower Pottsgrove Township's police station at Buchert and North Pleasant View roads.
SANATOGA PA – A police department consolidation study that Lower Pottsgrove (PA) Township commissioners say they really aren’t interested in, but to which they agreed anyway, has been approved by the state Department of Community and Economic Development (DCED).
The regional police study to be conducted by the Governor’s Center for Local Government Services would determine the feasibility of combining police departments in Lower, Upper and West Pottsgrove townships into a single force, ostensibly to reduce costs and improve efficiency. Lower Pottsgrove Police Chief Michael Shade was notified late last month (May 26, 2009) that the study had been OK’d for payment by DCED.
The township’s Board of Commissioners agreed in April (2009) to participate in the study, so long as it was done at no cost to the township and did not commit it to the combination. Commissioners at the time made no bones about their lack of enthusiasm for consolidation, essentially saying that “Lower Pottsgrove’s department works just fine on its own, thanks.”
One of the biggest hurdles to consolidation, commissioners have suggested, is a lack of uniformity in local ordinances between the townships. They agreed to join, however, at the request of West and Upper Pottsgrove, in a show of municipal cooperation. They might even learn something helpful, board members speculated.
In his approval letter to Shade, state local government policy specialist Ronald Stern said the study would be done by “selected qualified police chiefs in Pennsylvania” who are part of the state’s Police Peer Management Program. Shade and his counterparts in the other townships already have received directions and paperwork that will get the work under way.
A copy of Stern’s letter to Shade was included in information provided to the board during its June 1 (2009) meeting.
Related:
Related (to the Lower Pottsgrove Commissioners’ June 1 meeting):
- Keeping Their Eyes On The Pump
- Bateman Trail Cut Into Open Space
- Township Reconsiders Charitable Donations
- PennDOT Set For Meeting On Bridge Work
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