Mon Valley communities to explore regional police force
RANKIN, Pa. (KDKA) - Towns in the Mon Valley are struggling to provide their communities protection with understaffed and underpaid part-time police departments.
But some see a solution in regionalization: merging the police departments together and pooling limited resources.
Beginning this week, the state will be holding community meetings to form one big regional police force in the valley. Some say it's an idea whose time has come.
Rankin Police Chief Jeremi Gregory doesn't have time to sit in his office.
"I just can't handle the administration work. I've got to come on, answer calls also," he said.
Like all Mon Valley police departments, Rankin PD is understaffed, overworked and underpaid. It's just the chief and seven part-time officers, some making as little as $11 or $12 bucks an hour, meaning the chief is always on patrol and was first to respond to a three-car pile-up on the Rankin Bridge Tuesday.
"All hands on deck. Got to protect and serve," Gregory said.
Carl Lewis is a local grocer in town whose growing concerned about a shrinking police presence in the face of rising crime and gunplay.
"Our chief works all the time. Day and night. He's always here but he just can't do it alone," Lewis said.
Lewis believes it's time for struggling valley towns to pool their resources into one regional police department.
"These towns are stretched to the limits," Lewis said. "There's no resources, there's no money, there's no personnel and regionalization is the only way to fix the problem."
It's an idea that has been raised in the past. Towns like Rankin, Braddock, East Pittsburgh and Whittaker have talked about, then rejected, the creation of a regional police force. But the situation has only grown worse with Rankin and other towns now relying on the state police to provide overnight protection. Proponents believe regionalization would cut down administrative costs and spread more police over a bigger geographic area, improving police.
"It's one of the recommendations in the recovery plan," said Susan Hockenberry with the state Department of Community and Economic Development.
Most of the towns are in distressed status and the Department of Community and Economic Development has recommended the regionalization of police as a way to get them out. It will begin holding meetings this week to help draft a plan, stressing that the communities will decide.
"Communities are in the driver's seat. We're here to help them envision what they would like police to look like in those communities," Hockenberry said.
The overworked chief is doubtful but says any process must involve the input of the community, especially the officers themselves.
The first of three community meetings will begin Wednesday night. All Mon Valley towns are invited. If a plan is formed, it must be approved by the various borough councils.