Two words come to mind when I found out the manager wanted to change the charter to allow areawide police (I won’t say service as that’s not really what we are talking about). The words are cynicism and unethical and they apply to this idea. It’s cynical of anyone to push for a police service area when they know you can’t truthfully supply that service. It’s highly unethical to do it anyway.
We’ve had a gun pointed at us once in the last 40 years. We disarmed the guy and sent him home. The trooper was out of town but couldn’t have helped anyway. He did say the next time we saw the guy with a gun to shoot him and if he wasn’t on the property he would help us drag him over. Do you really think that any crime, minor or major, out the highway would somehow be prevented by additional taxes and a few speeding tickets?
It will be implied by some that if this is an areawide vote and passes, taxes will go down for people in the townsite area as people in the borough will help pay for police service. Nobody votes against a tax cut. But let me tell you a secret, empires have a tendency to grow if not restrained.
Dan Turner