No vote on proposal to disband Brownsville Police Department
Brownsville residents with blue ribbons on their lapels packed the Sons of Italy Hall Tuesday night to voice their concerns about a proposal to disband Brownsville Police Department.
At last month’s meeting, borough council voted 4 to 3 to advertise an ordinance to disband the department. The advertisement was never placed, so no vote could take place Tuesday. However, council heard plenty of discussion on the issue.
Todd Nicholson of Brownsville Ambulance Service told council that if the police department is disbanded, it puts not only the residents in danger, but first responders and patients.
“We are supposed to get a patient to the hospital within an hour. If the police department is disbanded, the response time is at least an hour. We have shootings, stabbings, beatings and overdoses. These things can happen anywhere,” said Nicholson. “We can’t treat a patient until the scene is secured. If a response time is 30 minutes or more, lives are going to be lost. If we don’t show up to these unsecured scenes, people are going to come to us. We have employees that do not want to work anymore because of this decision.”
Business owners David and Susan Yurkovich said with no police, the town will become a haven for criminals and criminal activities.
“We had an incident on the weekend. We called the state police, since the local department wasn’t on duty. We called three separate times and waited three hours. The state police told us they were busy with a shooting. We need a police department in this town,” said Susan Yurkovich.
Vito Dragoe of Teamsters Local 491, which represents Brownsville police officers, said members of the department agreed to freeze wages and are willing to work with the borough to keep the department in operation.
About a dozen residents echoed the sentiments that a state police response time would be unacceptable and detrimental to the well-being of those in the community.
Council President Jack Lawver said there could be no vote Tuesday on the issue of disbanding the police department because the ordinance to do so had not been advertised, despite last month’s vote. None of the council members could answer Councilwoman Tracy Zivkovich’s question about why it was not advertised. Council Secretary Jeff Wilhelm said no one on council gave him the ordinance to be advertised.
Zivkovich made a motion to adopt a preliminary budget that includes funding for the police department. The motion was rejected on a 4-3 vote.
Mayor Lester Ward said if council votes to disband the department, he will use his veto power. Solicitor Gary Matta said a veto would give the mayor the equivalent of two votes on the matter.
No further plans were made for a vote on the future of the department.
At the end of Tuesday’s meeting, Ward and Zivkovich announced they are running for re-election as write-in candidates in the November election.