Merger approved - Mountain Bay Metro Police Department is one step closer to reality
And The Wausonian gets answers
The Weston Village Board Monday night voted to approve a planned merger between Everest Metro and Rothschild police departments. Rothschild is expected to follow suit next Monday.
So how soon would the new Mountain Bay Metropolitan Police Department be up and running? April, village leaders say. Though from a conversation with Weston Administrator Jami Gebert and Rothschild Administrator Ryan VanDeWalle, the timeline for everything coming together is a little more fluid than that, as leaders work through all the processes to put everything into place.
The Weston board at Monday’s meeting also created the new police commission and oversight committee for the newly created Mountain Bay Metropolitan Police Department, and appointed members. And a new joint municipal court.
That means one of the first things the new commission will need to do is hire a police chief. VanDeWalle says they’re not necessarily ruling out an external hire but “It’s the intention of the commission to look at a strong internal hire.”
In the meantime, Chief Jeremy Hunt would retain his position as chief until a new chief is hired.
All that came out of my questioning of the short timeline, which they say should be thought of as more fluid than they seemed to let on at the press conference.
But all of this came together very quickly. Village President Mark Maloney said he thought it was the fastest he’s seen something like this done. “I think it’s a record,” Maloney said prior to the vote.
In my interview with Gebert and VanDeWalle, both confirmed that the departments have had staffing issues. Maloney took that a step further, saying that Everest Metro hasn’t been fully staffed since 2016.
Dan Vergin, the former chief who helped put the agreement together, said service levels will be better and the new joint department will help save taxpayer dollars.
The 40-sworn officer department will be housed in the Rothschild Police Department, which both administrators say has more room than the current Everest Metro station (which shares space with SAFER). That will still be used for storage.
All officers will keep their rank in the new department, and no one will need to re-apply for their jobs or anything like that.
Total budget for the new department will be $6.7 million, split 35/65 between Rothschild and Weston respectively. And budget increases for the department are limited to 3% annually.
The bigger department is expected to help with recruiting and allow officers to specialize more. And Vergin said at Monday’s meeting that it would allow for more officers on patrol at any given time. It’ll also allow for 24 hour supervision, which would cut down on lawsuits, Vergin says.
Board Member Barb Ermeling says she was on the board the last time a merger was attempted and it fell apart, so she was happy to see this merger pass.
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