Jan 16, 2019 4 min read

It was standing room only in the North Franklin Township Municipal Building as residents crowded together Tuesday evening to express dismay and at times outrage at the board of supervisors’ decision to disband the local police department.

Christina Hartzell’s voice trembled with emotion as she demanded answers from the board about how they planned to keep students like her daughter safe at the three schools located within the township’s boundaries.

“If there is an active shooter in one of these schools, how fast is the state police going to respond to that?” asked Hartzell.

In such a case, Supervisor Bob Sabot assured Hartzell that police officers from surrounding jurisdictions would jump to the aid of North Franklin under the agreement the township has with neighboring municipalities. Still, ever since the already strained state police took over coverage for the township on Jan. 1, residents have voiced concerns that their calls for help won’t be answered as promptly as before.

Supervisors voted unanimously to dissolve the police force at a special meeting in December, staring down an $850,000 deficit in the face of the annual deadline to balance the township’s budget. The board suspected that North Franklin had been struggling for years, but they said the previous secretary had failed to alert officials of the extent of the township’s financial distress.

They said the same secretary, who was forced out of her position in November, also neglected to complete three years’ worth of audits in the township, which supervisors are now scrambling to conclude.

Hearing about the financial disarray in her township was shocking for Heather Glaser. She asked for the complete version of North Franklin’s 20-page budget to be posted on its website for residents to examine.

“I’m glad to see so many people here, because even though we know you’re trying to do the right thing, we need to stay on you,” Glaser said, addressing the supervisors. “It’s our job as residents.”

Other residents like Michael Mull told the board that they had moved to North Franklin for the peace of mind and safety of having a police department in the neighborhood.

“When can we expect the opportunity to pay more taxes to get the police department back?” Mull asked the supervisors. “I just spent $2,500 to have a security system put into my house – money I could have put and would have put towards the police department.”

The board did discuss raising taxes on residents in lieu of dissolving the police force, Sabot told Mull, but the increase would have come to $500 for some families and even more for others. In addition, Sabot said this move would not have confronted the thousands of dollars that lawsuits and grievances in the police department had forced the township to shell out.

But township fire Chief Dave Bane told the crowd he’s worried that not having a local police force could be putting lives at risk.

Bane’s volunteers often have to wait for police officers to secure an area before jumping into action. Since the new year, they have spent as long as 20 minutes waiting on state police to arrive. Before, local officers often arrived to incidents before the firefighters.

Sabot recognized that the current state of affairs is less than ideal. But, since the township is currently engaging in bargaining with the police department’s union, he said the supervisors are unable to comment on plans to keep residents safe.

“Do we want to leave things how they are? Probably not,” he said. “We’re on a bridge right now between where we want to go and where we are now.”

Other townships that have disbanded their police departments have subsequently contracted with neighboring municipalities for coverage.

In other news, the supervisors announced to groans from the audience that the North Franklin Macy’s has appealed its tax assessment of $5.5 million, with a counter-appraisal of $1.2 million. This would be just the latest financial injury for the township, which lost well over $100 million in real estate value in the 2017 Washington County reassessment.

But in a spot of good news, Sabot announced to the crowd that the board had voted earlier that evening to grant Burger King a conditional-use permit to construct a drive-through on Chestnut Street.

“The Burger King project is a go as of tonight,” he said.