YorkCounts, a York-based nonprofit coalition, is closer than ever to coordinating the dollars needed to fund a $72,000 metropolitan police consolidation study, according to spokesman Dan Fink. Through a City of York grant, half of the funding has now been secured, and the rest, Fink said, will be solicited from private contributions in the community. Meanwhile, Lancaster City Mayor Rick Gray told NewsLanc on Wednesday that no serious discussion of such reforms has yet been broached among Lancaster’s municipal leaders.
Having secured the participation of five York-area municipalities, YorkCounts hit a snag last year when it became clear that an expected shared municipal services grant from the PA department of community and economic development would not be available under the 2010 state budget. That funding gap will now be halfway closed by a $36,000 York City grant—which, ironically enough, is made up of DCED funds, according to Fink.
The study has also received funding commitments from the York County Community Foundation and Better York, Fink said. The group plans to seek further donations from targeted local business, such as banks, that may have a particular interest in enhanced public safety.
According to Gray, the prospect of a regional or metropolitan police department here in Lancaster is nowhere on the immediate horizon. “But that doesn’t mean that its not going to happen,” Gray noted, “Sooner or later, local government—and the balkanization of local government—is just going to fall under its own weight. Our residents just can’t afford it.”
Last fall, Gray frequently emphasized the need for such a reconfiguration during public discussions regarding Lancaster Township’s police contract with the City. Gray argued that the City’s second policing proposal, which would have essentially treated the township like another city neighborhood, offered a positive step toward regionalization. The Township ultimately opted to contract with the Manheim Township Police Department.
On Wednesday, Gray said that the possibility of a future metropolitan department in Lancaster was not necessarily set back by Lancaster Township’s decision.
The next step in advancing a local discussion of regionalization, according to Gray, should come from area business leaders. “I think a lot of it’s going to have to come from outside the government from people with experience with operating businesses,” Gray explained, asserting that no successful businessperson would organize their operation like municipal police functions are in Lancaster County.
Last fall, Gray once cited the Lancaster Alliance as a local organization comparable to YorkCounts in being a nonprofit coalition of business leaders seeking to improve the quality of life in their metropolitan area. The Lancaster Alliance, however, has “not looked at nor investigated a metropolitan police department,” according to board chairman John Levitski.
