Broome county to explore consolidating police

[Swimmy]

www.pressconnects.com/article/20090111/NEWS01/901110361/1001/NEWS

[dgriffin]

Police consolidation will be a long slow process. Brennan will have trouble getting the hearts of the people, because they're interested in their personal safety, and as one of the commenters said at the bottom of the article, "Do you think a countywide sherriff's department is going to have foot patrols in Johnson City?"
Too, the savings would be in personnel and these officers are always someone's relatives, usually those of politicians. (Folks have been trying to combine our local town and village police departments since I moved here, 35 years ago.)

Another factor I seem to remember from most consolidation efforts, is that when you stack the savings against other spending, it just doesn't look like all that much.

And then there is the appearance (at least) of control. In all the movies I've seen, it's the STATE and FEDERAL police who are spying and have all the private information and control and are the bad guys ... never the local police.

Officer Pete easily wins our trust against The Federale Storm Troopers.

[bobbbiez]

Ain't gonna happen in our life time.

[Swimmy]

www.dos.state.ny.us/lgss/smsi/smsicasestudies/FullCaseStudies/Broome%20County%20Police%20Consolidation.pdf

[frankcor]

Thanks, swimmy! I wonder if there has been a comprehensive study such as that in Oneida County. The demographics are surprisingly similar. I always had the notion that Binghamton was a larger city than that.

[Clipper]

Binghamton itself stretches along the river and is kinda squashed between the hills. The area of Binghamton, Johnson City, Endicott, and the other little burgs, make up a fairly good sized metropolitan area when combined.

It will be interesting to see how they make out with the effort to combine the services. If they are successful, it will be even MORE interesting to see how Oneida County and the Utica-Rome area responds to the issue, and what are the reasons found to avoid following suit. I am sure that it would have to become a referendum, and the voters of Central NY would most likely defeat it. We always seem to avoid any attempt to change.

[bobbbiez]

Like I said before, "not in my life time."

Too much jealously between all.

[dgriffin]

My favorite sentence in the report: "The County Executive’s office ignored the highly emotional character of police services."

You betcha, twice over.

[dgriffin]

Jan 13, 2009 12:09:16 GMT -5 Clipper said:

The area of Binghamton, Johnson City, Endicott, and the other little burgs, make up a fairly good sized metropolitan area when combined. ].

That's true, but when I lived in Endicott, there were inherent differences in the social and political makeup of each town. (And don't forget Vestal, a large bedroom community, and the home of what now styles itself The University of Binghamton (SUNY B.)
Swimmy can bring us up to date, but I think there would be challenges in any consolidation of the Triple Cities, and more so than with Utica and Rome. But then, I don't live there, either.

[Swimmy]

The biggest problem appears to be that the County Executive Office never worked with the affected police
agencies until after the proposal was made public. This generated ill‐will and made for a proposal that is easy to
criticize as ill‐advised.

Go figure! Maybe Fiola did it that way because she knew it would get shot down before a working plan could be developed?

Anywhooo, Dave, I think you're right on the money. Though, I spend most of my time working with my clients and I'm not very involved in the community. So, my experience is limited and greatly influenced by my college experiences here. But it does appear that All three deem themselves as separate entities, not a regional juggernaut. The Endwell police department was bragging about it's new K-9 officer and how the 4-legged officer is a workaholic. So, even Endwell feels different.

I heard on the radio that Vestal and Port Dickinson police departments have merged into a Metropolitan police force, but i'm not sure what that means. I have not found any duplicate source to corroborate.

[Swimmy]

Opinions against consolidation cite more intangible reasons for their opinions. For instance, Michael Marinaccio, Town of Dickinson Supervisor and Vice‐President of the Greater Binghamton Council of Governments, noted that citizens tend to enjoy the status quo (Dueul, May 7, 2005). Other residents worry about the loss of control over their local governments (see Drazen, 30 November 2006). The concern with the “status quo” and “local control” reflect residential preferences for the local jurisdiction in which they chose to locate. Residents often feel a connection to their local city, town, or village. They may desire the provision of services by their local city, town, or village, particularly for public safety services, such as police. Citizens may value a local department with greater expertise in their locality, the familiarity of local provision of services, and greater local control.

That tends to lend more support to your understanding of the differences, Dave.

[dgriffin]

Here is is: " The concern with the “status quo” and “local control” reflect residential preferences for the local jurisdiction in which they chose to locate." Back in the early 1970's when I lived there, if you resided in Endwell, you wouldn't even admit that you drove through Johnson City to get home. The trendy college-educated people of Endwell and Vestal (aside from the Northside Endicott Slavics who cut all their yard trees and bushes down for unknown reasons) did not feel any degree of kinship with their factory-hand brethern of the other towns. The DMV, in an effort to standardize license plates at a time when the letters referred to geographic locations (e.g. UT, SR, SY) came up with the designations of BG for Binghamton and EJ for Endicott and Johnson City. A popular local legend told of the IBM housewife who refused to accept an EJ license plate, because she thought it would identify her husband as an employee of Endicott-Johnson, the shoe factory.
I suppose things may have changed in 30 or 40 years. But local politicians tend to come from the older "classes" of the population, that match the historical waves of immigration working themselves up the socioeconomic ladder, so probably the old feelings exist somewhere in their collective memories.

[frankcor]

It almost always stems from distrust of _THOSE_ people.