Resident urges county-wide police agency and urges community to read report on issue

Editor:

My final response to Mr. Sidari is a request that he read CGR’s options report. In brief, it states:

Single Law Enforcement Agency: The most substantial option for changing law enforcement in the county would be to move to a single law enforcement agency. If properly designed and implemented, a single law enforcement agency in Orleans County could provide a more effective and cost efficient service than is done with the five different agencies that are currently operating.

The option that is presented here presumes that there would be many key features continued from the current separate operations. While it would be possible to create a new county police department, for simplicity, this report presumes that the single law enforcement agency would the Orleans County Sheriff’s Office.

Some of the important features of the new operation would include:

• Similar levels of on duty officers, although the numbers may be adjusted to provide more staff on higher demand periods (late afternoon and evening) and less staff during low demand periods (early morning hours) as appropriate for public and officer safety;

• Officers that are regularly assigned to a community to help foster a connection with the community and bolster familiarity;

• Officers would generally start their shifts in dispersed zones;

• A police substation in or immediately adjacent to each village;

• Closest car would be used for all calls and officers would respond outside village limits on a regular basis;

• Officer deployment and patrol would be focused based on countywide analysis, not on current divided jurisdictions;

• Continuation of current services such as business/property checks and school resource officer program;

I would also direct him to the section that projects anticipated tax increases in keeping with the status quo.

The entire report is available at https://www.cgr.org/orleans-police/

Bob Harker

Clarendon