MEXICO – Merging the police departments of the neighboring towns of Dixfield and Mexico could be a benefit to the area, particularly if some of the surrounding towns decide to join.

That was a tentative thought coming out of the first meeting of the Police Department Merger Committee Tuesday night.

Eight people representing three area towns began tossing around ideas of how such a plan might work and how it could lead to shorter response times, particularly for the smaller towns without their own police departments.

Jim Theriault, the Mexico police chief, supports the idea.

“The chief would be an administrative chief and we could add an investigator,” he said.

He said a combined Mexico-Dixfield police department would need one chief, one investigator, one sergeant and seven patrol officers.

“There would be very minimal savings, unless we added Roxbury and Peru,” he said.

If the two towns should decide to receive their police coverage from a combined Mexico-Dixfield police department, they would drop coverage from the Oxford County Sheriff’s Department and two more officers would have to be added.

Dennis Daniel, a Roxbury selectman, said he attended Tuesday’s meeting to gauge interest in his town’s joining with Dixfield and Mexico.

Response time from the Sheriff’s Department sometimes takes a couple of hours, he told the committee.

Nanci Allard, Dixfield town manager, said she could see other advantages to a merger of the towns’ police departments.

“Officers could be better trained, use of reserve officers would be less, and department members would have a chance to move up,” she said.

Daniel, and others, also believe Rumford should join in an area merger of police departments.

“I think it’s a smart thing to do as a whole for the area. We have to think of the future,” he said.

The committee delayed setting a future meeting until after Jan. 18. At that time, representatives from many of the River Valley towns plan to meet to discuss ways they could cooperate to save money and become more efficient.

“There may be interest in forming one regional safety organization,” said Tony Carter, a Dixfield selectman.

David Errington, assistant to the Mexico town manager, said the governor supports regionalization.

“There’s probably a grant out there for a public safety building,” he said.

The Jan. 18 meeting takes place at 6 p.m. at Dirigo High School.