This article was funded by LebTown donors as part of our Civic Impact Reporting Project.
At their April meeting, the North Lebanon Township Board of Supervisors agreed to request a police regionalization study between North Cornwall and North Lebanon townships.
The study will analyze data from both townships: population, calls for service, crime rates, budgets and more.
Depending on the study’s outcome, the townships may go forward with regionalization, or merging the police departments.
A regionalization study for the police departments was performed in 2005, but ultimately no change was made.
Chairman Ed Brensinger was opposed to the regionalization study as he was part of the 2005 administration that decided against a merger.
North Lebanon Chief of Police Tim Knight said the merger would enable better service to the community at around the same cost.
“A lot of things have changed,” he said. “Both of our communities are growing — residential and commercial — and it’s hard providing the same services, manpower wise.”
Knight said that as things are, his officers are regularly working alone, partially due to a difficulty finding officers. With the merger, he said, his officers would no longer need to work alone.
“There won’t be officers working alone under a regionalization like that,” said Knight. “We’ll be able to have specializations within the department, quicker response times, we’ll have better training, and we’ll be available for more grants than we are now, individually.
“My opinion is that with the times we’re in right now, this is a way to continue to provide a professional service to the residents.”
North Lebanon supervisors meet at the township municipal building the third Monday of each month at 7 p.m. The meetings are open to the public and do not require prior registration.
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