Could Franklin and Mahoning townships contract with Lehighton Borough for police services?

Preliminary discussion took place Thursday night during a public meeting hosted by Lehighton.Lehighton police Chief Brian Biechy said he asked for the meeting after Franklin's supervisors called him to discuss a potential contract."We're at a crossroads in Franklin Township," said Franklin Supervisors Chairman Rod Green. "Our chief is retiring in six months and it's a good time to talk about contracting with Lehighton. For us, we could get better protection and a well-qualified police presence and it's a chance for Lehighton to expand its budget and get more money for things like equipment, training and more officers."Mahoning had previously had discussions with Lehighton about contracted services, and Supervisors' Chairman John Wieczorek said the municipality would again be interested."I'd like to find out if Lehighton can offer us something that fits our needs or if our demands exceed what they can provide," Wieczorek said.With five full-time officers and a police chief, Mahoning has strived for 24/7 police coverage, but incurs overtime to do it, Supervisor Bruce Steigerwalt said."We're looking at contracting 24/7 to see if it's a better deal budgetwise for us than what we are budgeting for police coverage," he said.Biechy asked Steigerwalt what Mahoning would do with its force if it did contract 24/7 with Lehighton?"I think we would disband," Steigerwalt answered.Thursday's meeting was the first time the three entities sat around the table to discuss the idea.Biechy said the next step would be to see if Lehighton's council is willing to consider going forward."If it is, then I think I would go to some other areas where departments are contracting out services to see how they did it, what pitfalls they had and what they would do differently," he said. "After that, I'd like to see it discussed more at a committee level."While he hasn't looked into a timeline, Biechy said any contract would likely take at least two years to get in place, if things were to move forward."I want to make it clear this would not be a regionalization," he said. "It's a straight-up contracted service. Lehighton would be in control and running the show. Our borough council would make the decisions and the mayor and myself would run the department and how it functions, from daily patrol to investigations to equipment."No price tag was discussed in exchange for the police services, but Biechy said he would prefer to keep it as clean as possible."We could craft it in any number of ways, but the simple way is the townships write us a check and we provide the full service," he said.Green sees a number of benefits for Franklin, which currently has a chief and several patrolmen.Random patrols, he said, just don't cut it and don't necessarily deter people from committing crimes."Saturation patrols gets results," Green said. "It's a fact. People see patrol cars coming around all the time and it keeps bad guys on their toes. This would be a win-win situation for Lehighton and Franklin."Steigerwalt and Green said their respective municipalities would be willing to kick in funds for Biechy to travel to other areas where a similar contract is in place."We don't want this to fail because Lehighton is fronting all the money for something that may not go anywhere," Steigerwalt said.