REGIONAL POLICE Farrell gets cost estimate for extra patrol

Extra patrols will cost the city extra money.
By HAROLD GWIN
VINDICATOR SHARON BUREAU
FARRELL, Pa. -- It will cost the city at least $23,100 to get an additional one-man patrol in a high-crime area.
That's the minimum price put on the service by Chief Riley Smoot of the Southwest Mercer County Regional Police Department.
The department serves Farrell, Wheatland, West Middlesex and Shenango Township.
Farrell council members asked Smoot for a cost estimate of additional patrols after a city businessman complained at the Aug. 23 council meeting about criminal activities such as drug sales and assaults outside his door on Idaho Street.
Smoot said Southwest normally has only two officers on patrol in Farrell, but city officials said they wanted to beef up the police presence in the Idaho Street area.
Offering options
Smoot told his police commission Tuesday of some options to offer Farrell. One would involve using full-time officers to provide patrols 12 hours per day for the remaining 122 days of the year.
The cost would be $79,934, he said.
A less-expensive option would be to use part-time officers for the special patrols, paying them at their overtime rate of $15.75 per hour plus insurance costs.
That would cost $23,100, he said.
Smoot also suggested that Farrell might want to underwrite the cost of instituting a police bicycle patrol unit to help expand the police presence.
It would cost $8,000 to outfit a four-officer patrol, he said.
The chief sent that information to Farrell officials in a letter but hasn't had any response.
Farrell Mayor William Morocco said the issue will likely be discussed at the Sept. 27 city council meeting.
Grant application
In other business, James DeCapua, commission chairman, asked the four municipalities to draft letters of support for a $178,000 grant application the agency has filed with the state to help cover the costs of expanding police operations to include Shenango Township.
Township officials voted to join the regional department as of July 1, and the grant application, filed with the Pennsylvania Center of Local Government Services, asks for money to pay for such things as a new telephone system, a new police utility vehicle, the repainting of 10 police vehicles, various traffic and investigative equipment and various police and office equipment.
The member municipalities need to lobby the state and locally elected state officials for support of the application, DeCapua said.