City, sheriff’s office aim to regionalize

As an example, Akron and Summit County have been working on regionalization for a couple of years.

STAFF REPORT

WARREN — Trumbull County Sheriff Thomas Altiere and his chief deputy say they have been researching ways to regionalize police work in the county for several months but were recently asked by a Warren official to focus on ways for Warren and the sheriff’s office to cooperate.

Ernest Cook, Altiere’s chief deputy, said he will make a presentation to the Regional Chamber’s council of governments at 6:30 p.m. Jan. 27 in Warren council chambers. The chamber is interested in reforming the form of government in Trumbull and Mahoning counties.

Cook said the regionalization presentation, however, will not focus on just the city.

Some of the presentation comes from information he obtained from the International Association of Chiefs of Police, he said.

Another good source of information is the city of Akron, which has been working a couple of years to form a close partnership with the Summit County Sheriff’s Office, Cook said.

The Ohio Board of Building Standards recently approved a deal for Summit County to take over the Akron building department and merge effective Feb. 2, according to a story in the Akron Beacon Journal.

Helen Rucker, a Warren city council member, approached Altiere to discuss ways for the city and sheriff’s office to work together, the sheriff said.

“We’re looking at whatever things we can to share,” the sheriff said.

There are some areas where regionalization might save money and improve service and efficiency, Altiere said, such as sharing records management systems, manpower and training.

For instance, records management could include police records or police reports, Altiere said.

That way, investigators could look up information on crimes committed elsewhere that might help solve a crime locally, Cook said.

Manpower sharing could take the form of two departments — even ones in different counties — creating one joint police district.

A specific example that comes to mind is the area in Liberty Township near Youngstown. Criminal activity constantly passes between the two jurisdictions there, Cook said.

The way to make regionalization work is to “start somewhere and then you develop a trust factor,” Cook said.

Because of fast advances in technology, it is beneficial for a department to develop a specialized expertise and then share it with other jurisdictions, Cook said.

An example would be Internet crimes or identity theft, he said.

“It’s not a matter of if but of when — and it could be years from now,” Cook said of such cooperation.