New Gloucester mulls law enforcement options
By Elizabeth Prata

New Gloucester-About 25 citizens came to hear information on and to talk about whether they want to pay for a contracted law enforcement officer to patrol their town.

The forum was facilitated by the Greater Portland Council of Governments Executive Director Neal Allen. Selectmen Chair Steve Libby said that a sub-committee composed of members from New Gloucester, North Yarmouth, Pownal, and Gray had initially begun looking at this issue two years ago as a collective endeavor. As time went on, Pownal and North Yarmouth dropped out, and Gray and New Gloucester went their own way, each deciding to look at law enforcement options for their individual towns.

Libby said that they had collected data, collated it, surveyed the citizens, sent out a request for proposals, and eventually the process had wound up with the public information hearing last Thursday.

Currently, police coverage includes State Police patrols, paid for by state taxes, and Cumberland County Sheriff patrols, paid for through County taxes. The Selectmen said that the 40 hour per week contracted law enforcement officer would be a supplemental officer to current patrols.
Steve Libby was startled to learn from Cumberland County officer Royce Bartlett, who was attending as a citizen, that the County Sheriff, Mark Dion, has decided that if the Town contracted with the State Police, the Sheriffs would no longer patrol New Gloucester.

"County Taxes pay for that service," Steve Libby said that the committee had sorted calls into three categories, Criminal, Traffic, and Other. The highest number of calls fell into the "other" category, comprised of property checks, pedestrian checks, welfare checks, etc. Under Criminal category, the most frequent call to service was criminal mischief, and under Traffic, the most frequent call was traffic violations.

Don Libby noted that according to the data presented calls actually went down from 2001 to 2002 for criminal and other. "Criminal and Other are 60% of the total calls," Don Libby said, "so I see this as a convenience factor for people to call and get service but won't offer more safety and criminal work, and I don't know if I want to pay for that."

The estimated cost for a one-year contract would be about $115,000 each year.

Edgar Wilcox wanted to know if the position was a 40 hour per week position, which 8 hours at a time will not be covered.

Steve Libby said that that would be worked out in negotiations with the law enforcement entity that wins the contract.

Phil Vampatella said that he was strongly in favor of the proposal. "I'm not so concerned with calls, it the offenses for which there are no calls- speeding- that I am concerned about." He said that he takes his life in his hands just by crossing the street to get his mail. Vampatella lives on Route 231.

New Gloucester had a dedicated officer in the early 1990s. Peter Bragdon wanted to know the reason that the town stopped the dedicated coverage.
Steve Libby answered that that the dedicated officer had to spend too much time in court and doing paperwork, not patrol.

Bartlett spoke against the proposal. "The time is not right for this. These are uncertain times with the tax referendum and the recent revaluation. I say let's not do it."

George Carmen said that "We already get two services. When we call, they're here. I don't see why we have to pay for something we already have."
Selectmen Stephanie Bryan said that they were looking for a presence as a deterrent and for faster response times.

Don Libby responded that he didn't thing 40 hours a week was so much of a deterrent. "You're just going to get a speedier response to something that's already happened."

The issue will be voted on as a warrant item at Town Meeting, May 3 at 7 p.m. at Memorial School.