3 Beaver County police departments to merge
BADEN, Pa. (KDKA) - A new police department is about to form in Beaver County.
On Wednesday, the boroughs of Baden, Conway and Freedom voted to dissolve their police departments and form a new tri-borough department, soon to be known as the Beaver Valley Regional Police Department.
The move comes after officers from the departments began the consolidation conversation with their councils over a year ago, citing that small departments like theirs are stretched too thin.
After studying the issue and getting community input, the boroughs decided that pooling municipal resources was not only fiscally responsible but practical for day-to-day operations.
Baden Borough Councilmember Michael Stuban says that this is a win for all the communities involved and that this new configuration will help them in a number of ways.
"Baden has four officers. We can't keep going on," Stuban said. "With a bigger department, we feel we can get better resources, better education, control the cost. Plus right now, there's such a hard time finding officers, whether it's part-time or full-time and we got to all start thinking outside the box, otherwise local police aren't going to be able to do their jobs."
Stuban also says that residents of these three boroughs will not see a change in their police service and he says that this new configuration could also help them to attract or train specialized officers.
"You can have a community relation officer. You can maybe have a drug dog officer. You can have a detective. We think it will actually increase our level of service," he said.
Stuban says that while this new police department is being set up, conversations have already started around combining fire departments, but that that change is still a bit down the road.
The consolidation of the three boroughs will take place between April and June of this year.