JAMESTOWN – A steering committee charged with looking into the possible consolidation of the Jamestown Police Department with the Chautauqua County Sheriff’s Office will be busy in the coming weeks looking at options as well as addressing any challenges associated with them. More than a dozen members of the Police Consolidation Study steering committee met Wednesday morning to discuss the plan laid out by representatives from the Center for Governmental Research, as well as talk about what the next steps would be.
The report provides several options for consolidation –ranging from more shared services between the two police agencies to eliminating the JPD and having the sheriff’s office take over law enforcement in the city. The latter plan is what the committee will be looking into over the next month.
The report from CGR also outlines several challenges associated with a consolidation, and also talks about how it can be accomplished – either through an immediate “Cut-Over” or through a gradual “Phase-in.” While the report goes into detail for both options – including laying out any challenges associated and providing possible solutions – Sheriff Joe Gerace said it would be in the best interest of the committee to further explore both options.
“It sounds simplistic but its not,” Gerace said. “Either one of those models has significant issues that could be ‘show stoppers.’ There are intricacies in either plan and they need to be investigated further, even more so than they have been up to today.”
The members of the steering committee – which include both law enforcement officials from both agencies as well as city and county officials – agreed it would be best to explore both options further, and moved forward with the creation of two sub-committees to further address the challenges and obstacles for both options. One sub committee will deal with addressing how operations and equipment would be dealt with for both a Cut-over and Phase-in option, while the second committee would focus on the Contractual and Administrative challenges of each option. They will also look at a possible hybrid option, where portions of the cut-over option as well as the phase-in option would both be implemented.
The subcommittees will have their first meeting on Jan. 10 at 9 a.m. at Jamestown Community College. A second meeting will also take place on January 18. The next full meeting of the Steering committee will take place on Jan. 30.
Earlier this year, the City and the county received a $180,000 grant from New York State to hire CGR and look into a police consolidation plan. The plan was completed earlier this month and made available to the public last weekend. It can be downloaded by clicking on the following link:
www.cgr.org/jamestown/docs/Baseline-and-Prelim-Options-11-9-2012.pdf
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