Friday, October 16, 2009

Public Safety

At the 13 October special meeting of the Town Board (called by me and Candy Bohmert), the Board of Commissioners directed the Town Manager to initiate the hire of two part time deputy policemen and to begin efforts to establish a neighborhood watch program for Oriental.

It was clear from the public comments at the meeting that most attendees shared my view that we have tried a one-man police force and it doesn't work. I asked for the special meeting because I thought the matter too urgent to wait for the next regular meeting. I hope we will be ready to move on the first part-time hire by October 23.

The Board recognized that part time hires will be only a temporary solution and that we should consider at least one full-time hire as a possible longer-term measure. The procedure to hire another full time policemen can be expected to take at least ten to twelve weeks. We expect the newly elected board to take this up in December.

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