Committee seeks to reduce duplication of services – starting with Brockport’s police department

A group of Village of Brockport taxpayers, stung by a 17 percent tax increase in 2002 and facing the possibility of a much larger increase in 2003, are banding together in an effort to force a referendum to eliminate the village’s police department.

"When our village tax rolls in Brockport are $1.7 million and that’s the cost of the local police force – it’s time to make some changes," Brockport Tax Reduction Group Steering Committee member Donovan Dunn said. "If we depend on the sheriff and the troopers for peace in the streets then we can effectively get rid of the police force."

Dunn said the village has to make some effort to reduce taxes and he and fellow committee members say eliminating the police department is the way to do it. "The police force keeps growing and we still have the same law and order problems we have always had … we have lost at all levels of the battles against crime," he explained.

While Dunn couldn’t speculate on whether public safety would be affected by the elimination of the department, he said he did feel that law enforcement officials on the sheriff’s and troopers forces wouldn’t be willing to deal with the same trouble makers on a weekly basis. "I don’t think they’d be willing to give crooks and vandals a second chance," he said.

Committee member Sharon Kehoe said she doesn’t think that safety would be an issue if the force was disbanded. "Our neighbors in the immediate area utilize the sheriff and troopers," she said. "Henrietta, for example, is more densely populated than Brockport and the sheriff and troopers are able to keep up with it."

To argue that the safety of Brockport residents would be in jeopardy is ridiculous, Kehoe said. "It amazes me that people in our community believe their safety would be in jeopardy if we didn’t have our own police department," she said. "It’s mind boggling that they think that … the sheriff can do the task."

Much of the problem with lawlessness in the village, Dunn said, is caused by students from the university. "People from the college are desecrating property," he said. "It’s only two percent of the people causing all the problems but they are the same two percent all of the time."

If the village did away with the police department and the dispatching unit, Kehoe said, taxpayers would save more than $1.7 million annually. "We were told the local dispatchers and police officers could be hired by Monroe County," she explained. "If we did away with the duplication of services we could do a lot of things for this village with that extra money."

Kehoe said she isn’t against the police department. "I’m not against them and I do value my safety just as much as anyone else in the village," she said. "I just don’t understand why anyone wants to pay for the same services twice."

The Tax Reduction Group was started as a way for taxpayers to look at ways of saving the village money. The impetus for the committee began at last year’s budget process, Kehoe said.

Kehoe saw a tax increase on her bill this year of more than $500. "If people don’t think this is a serious matter, they will when they get their tax bills," she said. "My bill increased almost 50 percent this year."

Members of the committee circulated a flyer and invited Mayor Josephine Matela and a member of the Monroe County Sheriff’s Department to attend a meeting on October 3, she said. Matela declined to attend and upon hearing that, the Sheriff’s department representative bowed out also, Kehoe said. Prior to the meeting, Kehoe said she would read a statement from the Sheriff’s department regarding the issue.

Matela said she was led to believe that the meeting wasn’t about getting rid of the police department. "I was misled," she said. "I trusted this would be an open forum but when I saw the flyer and it said a petition would be circulated to disband the department, I was very disappointed."

She said she would have liked to have attended the meeting if it were the open forum she anticipated.