Police hiring process getting started

Several vacancies on force to be filled

A new year has brought new talks on staffing levels for the Lansdale Police Department.

Borough officials are starting the process of filling multiple vacancies in the town’s police department, possibly as soon as next month.

“Right now, we are down two officers: one resigned this year, and one retired last year. A third is an officer who is currently not working, he’s on disability,” said police Chief Mike Trail.

“If that were to open up, those three hirings are fully funded,” he said.

During the Feb. 3 borough council and committee meetings, Trail and public safety committee chairwoman Meg Currie Teoh reported on the latest developments toward filling those vacancies. As of early February, Teoh said, police are currently doing background checks on candidates for two spots, and names could be announced in the form of requests from Trail, to the committee, then council as soon as next month.

“He expects to have a request in our March meeting to hire two officers, or extend offers to two officers — possibly a third down the road, depending on how things go, but for now two,” she said.

The public safety committee is considering three sets of criteria to determine staffing levels, Teoh cold council: one comes from international policing organizations and is based on numbers of calls per year, a second takes into account call totals plus numbers of

different varieties of crime, and a third is based on population, and an average number of officers per 1,000 residents.

“The first two, to me, sound pretty valuable, but require quite a lot of data from the previous year — and 2020 was a weird year for data,” Teoh said.

Using the populationbased calculations, Teoh said, recommended policing levels would be 1.8 officers per 1,000 residents, and the borough is currently at 1.3 officers per 1,000 before filling the vacancies.

“It’s not to say that we’re understaffed, necessarily — more that it would allow the department to be able to spread out their officers a little bit more, and have more of a focus on patrol as opposed to calls,” she said.

Councilman BJ Breish asked if council should consider hiring to fill all three vacancies in 2021, given police expenses in 2020 were less than expected due to COVID-19 and the resulting lack of events and police overtime needed to cover them.

“It’s not quite that simple,” Mayor Garry Herbert replied; the town’s civil service commission is currently updating its list of potential candidates for those positions, and that list remains valid for one year.

Trail added that even filling all three spots would produce savings over the last full year department budget in 2019, since the new hires would start at lower salaries than the officers they replace.

“I’d love to see us do it in 2021. Responsibly, I think as we get closer to summer, and the 2022 budget season, we’ll be in a better position to give you hard numbers, so you can make decisions,” Trail said.

Borough Manager John Ernst added one other possible complication: staff are still searching for a new finance director, after the departure of prior director John Ramey in December 2020.

“I would really like to get a new finance director in place, so we can start to talk about these budget implications for these types of investments as we move forward,” he said.

Summer parks calendar filling up: Parks and recreation director Karl Lukens told the parks committee on Feb. 3 how his department is planning a busy summer season.

“We have ten concerts booked, with two additional dates to use as rain dates. So instead of just cancelling a concert, like we were going to do last year before COVID, if we get a rainout we’ll push that band to the end,” he said.

In 2020 summer concerts at Whites Road Park were held outdoors with safe distancing protocols in place, but later in the year than the typical schedule due to COVID-related prohibitions on large public events. Lukens said he and his department are currently planning to have those outdoor concerts starting in early June, movie nights likely once each in June, July and August, and some form of spaced-out Festival of the Arts during borough Founders Day celebrations in late August.

“We’ve had a lot of positive results come back from that. People are excited, and willing to sign up,” he said.

Parks department staff are also planning ways to move certain spring and summer programs outdoors, and first on the list will likely be Zumba classes at an outdoor former skating rink at Whites Road, which could be moved online if rained out. The town’s annual spring Easter egg hunt and bike rodeo are both likely not happening because of current COVID conditions, he added, but an outdoor week-long skateboard camp is being planned for August at the borough’s skate park.

“You’ll start seeing this stuff pop up on the parks and recreation registration site. It feels like we’re doing things again,” Lukens said.

150th planning ongoing: Councilwoman Mary Fuller reported that the town’s 150th anniversary committee is looking for volunteers, to help plan events throughout the borough’s birthday year in 2022.

“I anticipate at that point, we will be allowed full-swing events, and we’re looking forward to that time,” she said.

In early talks, members of the 150th committee have proposed installing a gazebo in Memorial Park to act as a focal point for town events, with brick pavers surrounding the gazebo that could be sold as a fundraiser and honor local residents.

“We have plenty of committees, and we’ll need plenty of help,” said Fuller,

who also leads local event nonprofit Discover Lansdale that will likely coordinate the anniversary events.

For more information visit www.DiscoverLansdale.org, follow @Lansdaleorg on Twitter or search for “Discover Lansdale” on Facebook.

Board and commission seats open: Council President Denton Burnell also announced on Feb. 3 that several borough boards and commissions still have open seats that need volunteers.

“Over our last couple of months, we’ve been digging out of reappointments. We are still working through some of our openings,” he said.

Open seats are available for those interested in serving on the borough’s Planning Commission and police pension board, Burnell said.

“On the plus side, we do have some good, interested candidates, so I’m hoping we can fill at least one fairly quickly,” he said.

Aside from those boards and bodies that are already up and running, council is also currently considering applicants for the environmental advisory commission created in 2019 to advise council on all things green, and which Burnell said in early 2020 already had a dozen interested applicants.

Those interested in serving should send a letter of interest and resume to board vacancies, care of recording secretary Stacie Maile, One Vine Street, Lansdale, Pa 19446 or email smaile@lansdale.org.

For more information or meeting agendas and materials visit www.Lansdale. org.