Mayor: Loss of LT contract will benefit city taxpayers
At the September 22 meeting of Lancaster City Council, Mayor Rick Gray explained the changes that will take place upon Lancaster Township’s (LT) January 1 transition from police coverage by the Lancaster City’s Police Department to that of Manheim Township (MT). While blunt in his evaluation of what LT will lose, Gray maintained that the change will ultimately benefit city taxpayers.
Gray asserted that the City has long provided LT with a variety services that we never clearly billed. “In my view,” Gray said, “City taxpayers have been too often subsidizing the cost of police services to Lancaster Township.”
According to Gray, no Lancaster City patrol officer will be laid off as a result of the transition. The ten officers previously assigned to the LT area will be absorbed back into city patrols while the department will reduce its staff through regular attrition and retirements, Gray said.
Gray also noted that police response will likely be boosted for city residents after the 2010 transition. Under the current contract, when an officer assigned to LT is unable to work, the City customarily draws a replacement from its own areas of coverage. In this regard, residents of Lancaster City will experience a slightly more steady and reliable police presence after the transition.
During his remarks, Gray detailed some impacts that the transition will bring to LT:
- The City’s Detective Division will no longer serve the township. Over the past five years, of all the crimes that City detectives have investigated, 5-10% of crimes against persons and 10-15% of property crimes have come from Lancaster Township.
- Approximately 446 open investigations, including one homicide, will be turned over to the MT police department. Gray noted that some of these cases have actually been closed, but await the completion of final reports.
- For any cases currently under prosecution, the townships will have to reimburse the City for any expenses incurred through additional investigation and court appearance after December 31, 2009.
- All LT-related items in the City’s evidence warehouse will be turned over to MT. This collection accounts for about 15% of the entire warehouse inventory.
- Parking enforcement, City computer database access, collection of unpaid parking tickets, and collection of certain fines are also among those services that the City will no longer provide.
Finally, Gray asserted that, since City police and MT police run their radios on different bands, “our police officers won’t hear an emergency call” related to any problem in the LT area. “I’m not sure anybody considered that in doing this,” Gray said.
Most police radios can monitor multiple channels and are capable of switching if the dispatcher tell them to do so. Mayor Gray is just mad because he played a game and thought he had the supervisors and the citizens of LT eating out of his hand, it did not work.
As far as parking enforcement please go to the Manor Shopping Center and look at the number of double parked vehicles in the fire lane.
I am not sure the Mayor was wise to make some of the statements he did. Does he forget about three weeks ago, when over ten county units came in to help at the Alley Cat or the fire at the Stevens House Apts. KEEP TALKING RICK!!
So why not tell LancasterTownship to hit the road sooner if it was such a bad deal for City residents? I know that some question whether or not MT can do the job, especially at their bargain price, but I personally applaud LT leaders for their efforts.
The reality is that the City, under Mayor Gray’s leadership, played a risky game of chicken with LT and lost. They did not bargain in good faith, they said take it or leave it. Now that LT has left it, Mayor Gray wants to tell his constituents it was a bad deal all along. I don’t buy that.
I also do not believe that LT leaders would risk their own necks if they felt that MT could not do the job. Some have suggested that the police coverage should never have been made a “political” issue. Since when is seeking alternative options/opinions “political”?
In the end, I think that either force benefits from the extra work, revenue stream, and expanded force required to cover LT. The fact is that Rick Gray has a huge black eye on this one and he is trying now to spin it as a positive…in other words, he is “putting lipstick on a pig”.