MEDWAY, Maine — Town leaders are investigating what it would cost to start their own police department.
Town Administrative Assistant Kathy Lee said she is assembling cost estimates for the Board of Selectmen that she plans to present to the board.
The suggestion comes from Selectman David Dickey, who raised it during a recent board meeting. Minutes to the meeting don’t state exactly why Dickey raised the issue, and Lee said she didn’t know.
“It was just something he came out with,” Lee said.
Town officials are preparing their 2012-13 budget, which is usually adopted effective July 1, and town leaders often seek cost estimates for various ideas as part of discussing their feasibility, Lee said.
Along those lines, selectmen are considering consolidating the town fire department with East Millinocket and have hired a former Brewer fire chief to help them select a fire chief to replace John Lee, who retired late last year after about 30 years of service. No one has decided yet whether to hire a new chief or to consolidate departments.
The town has contracted with East Millinocket for its police service for more than 10 years. State police and Penobscot County sheriff’s deputies also supplement regular patrols when they ride through town.
The Bingo players comming home will have to really be careful now.
Wha? They had their own police department. They got rid of it ages ago because it cost too much – long before that kind of thing became so fashionable.
Sounds like Mr. Dickey thinks he’s in a big city with unlimited tax dollars. He’s dreaming.
You watch Mr. Dickey, if it can be done he will get it done. Go Medway!!!!!
Medway definately needs their own police department. Being the gateway to the new Quimby National Park, someone needs to keep those hoards of tourists safe from the so called neaderthals that live in the area.
Maybe if they had a police officer at the exit in Medway they could stop more vehicles loaded with drugs being carried into the drug addicts of Millinocket
Didnt the Medway police chief blow his hand off. Fishing with home made explosives a few years back.
Yup. We had a chance to be the first town in the country to have a ROBO Cop.
Medway Vice is coming back. Awesome!!
you saw it first in Bangor
Ex-FBI agent tells of undercover probe and psychological ruin
Published on Monday, Aug 11, 2008 at 5:05 am | Last updated on Wednesday, Aug 26, 2009 at 12:12 am
see link for full story
http://www.sunjournal.com/node/164835
LEWISTON – Donald R. Goulet, a war hero and former FBI special agent who was brought up in Lewiston, teamed up with Passamaquoddy Indian Reservation Police Chief Frederick J. Moore II to take on a major tobacco smuggling ring in the 1990s.
Goulet chronicles his journey from Marine combat in Vietnam to his service in the FBI. He provides disturbing details of his psychological breakdown in the late 1990s and the glimpse of heaven he experienced, which triggered his renewed Catholic faith.
Yup, the selectman want a Roscoe and Enos.
Medway might first want to create a volunteer civilian review board to look at what kind of policing model they will go with.
Eileen Luna has written extensively on the subject. google her name with the word police.
The town may also want to visit the website called copwatchdotnet take out the dot and put
in a period.
This site has an active forum that lists the arrest records of law enforcement people
getting arrested for rape,pedophilia,dealing drugs, domestic violence etc.
The town should google driving while female to look at the national problem of law enforcement
pulling over women and raping them.
If the moonbats in medway are serious they will look at the berkeley copwatch and portland copwatch websites. just google those names.
Sounds to me like you got to much time on your hands.
She puts that garbage up on most of the posts relating to law enforcement. I wonder how come she can call people moonbats and when some else calls her one Disquis doesn’t let someone call her one back? HOW ABOUT IT DISQUS?
Apparently the decision is not driven by a marked interest in criminal activity — no mention by the selectmen or the reporter.
A solution in search of a problem.
I will admit to being a ‘newbie’ as far as Medway’s history of their having a police dept. are concerned. But if Medway did indeed have a police dept. before then they need to look back and see if the reasons they dissolved it are still there or have things changed, including the financial cost’s, sufficiently that require it to be brought back. Given the PBSO, the current East Millinocket coverage contract and the MSP, it would seem that the idea, while sounding awful nice, is not really that practical. In a time of tight budget’s, and I really suggest that the Medway Council look into it, the cost’s of operating a municipal police dept. are frighteningly staggering. Beside the daily cost’s of payroll and support, (Someone’s gonna have to pay for the gas in the patrol car !) there is a whole host of other ‘hidden’ cost’s. Municipal insurance coverage’s (Workmen’s Comp., Malpractice etc.), radio communications, both costs and maintenance, facillities (At some point there has to be a Station) and training cost’s (and I’ve been a Fed. Training Officer) are gonna add up a lot faster than anyone thinks from the sounds that are being made.
A great many communities have contracted for their coverage. That East Millinocket is providing coverage right now is an example. Connecticut State Police has provision for a Resident Trooper as does Maryland State Police in some of the more remote commuities. A great many local Sheriff’s Office’s provide similar coverage. Given the physical size and distance’s of some of Maine’s town’s, this idea might be worth investigating. And it should be also mentioned that on top of the current Agencies mentioned that the Maine Warden Service, as well as the local Fed’s, especially in the more remote border area’s, serve as the sole law enforcement agency. While I applaud Medway’s interest, one has to look around at what you have that’s working before you go out and re-invent the wheel.
Medway doesn’t have a council,it’s a select board and they can’t approve this without the tax payers voting on this. People are not going to vote to increase taxes. East Millinocket has been providing good coverage,why change it?
Then, Sir my point has been made.
There won’t be a tax increase.
Medway, already buys the police car for East, it also pays Ins etc. It is a good time to do this as Medway does not have a budget problem and this is being looked at to save money, as the selectman in East want to up the contract by 50%. How will East make out when they lose 100plus K out of their police budget.
East Mill PD committed a major political NO NO. There are two former and one current Selectmen who cannot let this one stand! http://bangor-launch.newspackstaging.com/2011/07/29/news/penobscot/grand-jury-indicts-former-volunteer-rec-coach-on-sex-charges/
It’s still up to the taxpayers,no matter what!
Bad96, In a selectman form of govt. it is always up to the taxpayer, this is nothing new, the selectman will put the plan together and if it makes sense will take it to the taxpayer. Medway has been doing this for years, if it makes sense the taxpayer will vote for it.
But that foundation of local democracy requires that the Selectmen provide the voters with the truth so that they, as the legislative body, can make an informed decision. That will never happen in this case. This is nothing more than a personal vendetta against an honest cop who, in doing the right thing, has destroyed his career future in that region.
I don’t know the goings on with that Pete
http://bangor-launch.newspackstaging.com/2011/07/29/news/penobscot/grand-jury-indicts-former-volunteer-rec-coach-on-sex-charges/
I have seen up close and personal just how brutal the local town fathers can be against any young woman that reports such misconduct and anyone even so much as suspected of providing such a victim with any comfort, support, town employment, or testimony. It is not pretty, and a “open secret” that the area could really do without.
Pete, could you give us some more info on this?
In May of 2011 The Maine Sate Troopers Association reported that two thirds of their 310 side arms were over 10 years old and some were even older-up to 15 years.Many of the night sights did not work at all. The reason-MONEY. Before the good citizens of Medway think about starting a whole new department they had better be sure that they can properly equip the officers they hire. If the State can’t- could they?
I gotta say FBI agent Ryan Seese was fully equipped, eh?
FBI Agent Accused Of Masturbating In Public
http://www.pennlive.com/midstate/index.ssf/2010/12/ex-fbi_agent_sentenced_to_pris.html
May 25, 2007 09:02 PM
FBI Agent Accused Of Masturbating In Public
Posted by, Marissa Pasquet KOLD News 13 News Editor
FBI Special Agent Ryan Seese, 34, is facing sex offense charges after a cleaning woman said she found him masturbating in a women’s lavatory on campus, according to a University of Arizona police spokesman.
Medway runs it’s budget a little different than the State does.
It will be a Lee as Chief of Police!!! bAhhhhhAAA
Your name becomes u, you are pond scum… the Lee’s bring a lot of tax dollars to the town of Medway
so that is why it would only seem fit for them get on the force and get that dollar back.
Just saying the tree roots dont spread that far…
Medway must be doing better than the rest of the Nation
Medway is not doing to bad.
I think the town council should bring in the FBI to help
them screen potential candidates for Chief of Police
http://www.pet-abuse.com/cases/13316/TX/US/
swee link for full story
Dog shot to death, FBI agent chargedLorena, TX (US)
Friday, Feb 29, 2008
A Waco FBI agent was being held at the McLennan County Jail today on a cruelty to animals charge.
Lovett Les Ledger, 39, was booked at 7 a.m. March 7, and released in lieu of a $3,000 personal recognizance bond.
According to the sworn arrest warrant affidavit by Lt. Clay Perry of the
sheriff’s office, Ledger admitted to investigators that he shot and
killed a neighbor’s Chihuahua with a BB/pellet gun. The affidavit also
says that Ledger earlier told investigators that he knew nothing about
the shooting of the dog.
Accoding to news station KCEN, another couple that lives down the street
is saying Ledger shot and killed their lab mix 5 years ago.
What you think doesn’t matter! It sounds like you have a problem with law enforcement.
I have a problem with the high rate and seriousness of crimes committed by
people working in law enforcement.Did I mention its failure rate?
As a taxpayer I help fund the military run criminal justice arena.
I think its time to have the civilians take back control and run a system they fund.
After all they are the primary consumers.
The moonbats in the Augusts Bat house have been giving law enforcement a free pass
with catastrophic results. Just ask the hacks Amy Caine and Anne Haskell.
see http://www.vera.org/files/price-of-prisons-maine-fact-sheet.pdf
Why don’t you run for office then? You seem to have all the answers!
No I don’t have all the answers. But I believe if there was a volunteer civilian police review board
with subpoena powers the people on the board would handle the issues connected to crime and punishment a lot better than any one individual myself included.
I hear with all the problems in the East Mill department, the officers are asking to come to work for Medway. We already pay for the Car and equipment and their INS, all that is left, is just parking our car in our garage.
Then East would lose 100plusK per year out of their budget and have to buy their own car. It sounds like the East Mill selectman continues to make the best decisions for their tax payers. NOT
You should make sure you never have to move from medway, there is not a town for miles that would have you!! That must be a good feeling.