Pocono News Section

Luzerne police petition

Luzerne police petition - Thursday, March 25, 2010 at 04:04AM EST

Reported by: Mike Trim
Thursday March 25 2010
A packed house at Luzerne fire hall full of people with one message: stick with swoyersville police on our streets. Tom Cardillo of Luzerne said, "I just felt like it was wrong. I felt they left the whole community in the dark and they should have brought this up months ago and I felt maybe i should speak up." Cardillo started a petition that has about 300 signatures asking Luzerne borough to throw out its plan to create a new police force. Right now, Swoyersville police patrol Luzerne borough. It's been like that for 10 years. Luzerne borough council says it would save money by creating a new department but many here aren't buying that. David Irwin of Luzerne said, "It would cost more in budgetary wise, politically-wise for them to reactivate their own department between insurances, between response times than to leave it just the way it is." Luzerne mayor James Keller says it all comes down to money. He says the borough pays Swoyersville about 223 thousand dollars a year for police coverage. A newly formed police department would cost 175 thousand dollars a year according to the mayor. Staying with the Swoyersville police contract would mean a tax hike. Mayor Keller said, "There's people in town that have trouble paying their sewer bills, their water bills, their light bills and we're going to hit them with more taxes? Not if we can help it." Luzerne borough sent Swoyersville a notice that the police council wanted to end the police contract. That's a contract that expires June 30th. Luzerne council wants to have a part time chief and up to eight part time officers ready to go before then.