Carbon County sheriff’s office wants to explore what it would take to run a K-9 unit through the department.

On Thursday, the county commissioners voted 2-1 to permit deputy Nicole M. Thalmann to attend a seminar in Doylestown on K-9 Unit Management at a cost of $295.

Commissioner Chris Lukasevich, who cast the sole “no” vote, questioned if a vulnerability assessment that was completed mentioned a security gap that requires a K-9 unit.

Gregory Armstrong, district court administrator, said he didn’t remember since that assessment was done approximately five years ago.

Lukasevich said feels that this may open Pandora’s box, citing a letter he said the county received raising concerns over beginning a K-9 unit, including the costs, liability, and time it will require.

Commissioner Rocky Ahner said that this action is not about a person getting trained to train a dog, but that is not the case.

“My view on this is I think someone should go to this because it is about administration, how to run the whole system and then when they see what this budget costs, they can present it to us,” he said.

Commissioners’ Chairman Wayne Nothstein said that this is an exploratory issue that is also piggybacking on the district attorney’s recent suggestion to municipal police departments about regionalization.

Sheriff Dan Ziegler said after the meeting that the seminar request is truly an exploratory matter to see if it is something that could be handled in the county.

He said that his office has received several inquiries about possibly starting a K-9 unit, which would be a resource to the whole county.

Ziegler noted that a program like this does take a lot of time and money when it comes to training people, finding the right dog and training it and running the operations, but he has had offers from residents to donate funds to offset the majority of the costs.

“The training that is referenced … is just that, it’s an exploratory training,” he said, “because we really need to do our homework and determine what’s involved with that.”

Ziegler said he had not seen the letter Lukasevich referenced about concerns a taxpayer was raising prior to hearing about it at the meeting and noted that he plans to review the information Thalmann will receive at the training before making any proposal to actually start a program, if it is feasible for Carbon.

“The residents of Carbon County who have inquired about this deserve to have an answer if this is a possibility or not,” Ziegler said.