By Nick P. Angelides,Special to the Sun Journal

MONMOUTH – Residents voted 614-449 Tuesday to keep their Police Department, capping months of controversy after a Maine Chiefs of Police Association cited the department’s lack of leadership and years of negligence in operating procedures.

“That has changed,” said interim Chief James Minkowsky, who has been on loan from the Lewiston Police Department. “The town did it! The next step is to get the standard operating procedures back up and turn this into a turnkey package for the next chief.”

Town Clerk Diane MacDougall said there was a healthy turnout. “I think it worked; people came out in numbers and we’re all happy.”

With Tuesday’s vote behind the town, Minkowsky said the next step is to see what comes out of today’s selectmen’s meeting.

“An advisory committee will need to be put in place,” he said at a public hearing last week. “I will be part of it on some level.”

Reserve officer Dennis Fournier said he was overjoyed with the vote, the second in two years supporting a town police force.

“I’m glad it’s done with, and this time no in-between issues were left open,” he said. “The main difference I think is that people were more educated this time around.”

In 2004, the town of about 4,000 voted 1,278 to 399 in favor of keeping the Police Department. That referendum was nonbinding.

Then in 2005, the police chiefs association report was issued stressing inadequacies in the chain of command and numerous procedures and protocols that had not been followed for a long time.

The Board of Selectmen split into factions, some urging that the department be dissolved. Police Chief Charles Shaw Jr. resigned in January.

Town Manager Jason Simcock, after only a year on the job, resigned in October. Board of Selectmen Chairman Leonard Bates resigned a week later, citing a “hostile attitude” at board meetings.

Also in October, a five-year veteran of the Monmouth Police Department, Officer Stanley Walker, filed a lawsuit against the town claiming he had been coerced by Simcock into leaving the force.

At full force, the department had four full-time officers and a chief; in late January it was down to one full-time officer and two reserves.

One option considered by the town was having the Kennebec County Sheriff’s Department provide police coverage for $314,280. That would pay for four deputies working on a rotating schedule, with an on-call deputy used during off-hours.

Maintaining the local police department would cost about $50,000 more, according to Minkowsky. That price would include new equipment, policies and standards and would allow the town to retain local control with a new chief and a proposed new sergeant.

Minkowsky said Tuesday night that he believes he will head back to work for LPD in April.

“I will miss it. I live in Monmouth and have grown attached,” he said. “This department has become a little brother/sister unit for us in Lewiston. This is a good town and it deserves its own department. It can work.”

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