MEXICO — The Board of Selectmen met with the Dixfield town manager and two Dixfield selectmen Wednesday night to discuss the possibility of sharing a police chief.
Mexico Board of Selectmen Chairman Richie Philbrick said the board sent a letter to Dixfield selectmen after hearing that Dixfield police Chief Richard Pickett will retire in early 2015.
Dixfield Town Manager Carlo Puiia said his board was going to look into advertising for a chief, but after receiving the letter from Mexico, agreed to meet to discuss the idea.
“You guys have a five-man force, and we have a five-man force,” Mexico Selectman Albert Aniel told Dixfield Board of Selectmen Chairman Scott Belskis and Puiia. “What we’re interested in is assuring the best possible service to our towns. We’re looking for the most effective and least expensive way of doing it, and since your chief is retiring, we thought it might be a good opportunity to share a chief between us.”
Aniel said it would “defray some of our costs by allowing us to split the salary of a police chief.”
“I’m not sure if it would be better to disband one of the police departments and form into one, or stay separate and just share a chief,” Aniel said. “Eventually, we’ll have to do something.”
Belskis said he’s concerned about making the pay scales even between the two towns, if they were to consider merging.
Mexico Selectman Byron Ouellette said the Mexico and Dixfield police departments are “much closer” with pay scales than Mexico and Rumford.
“It’d be a lot easier to work something out between Mexico and Dixfield than Mexico and Rumford,” Ouellette said.
John Madigan, who serves as town manager for Mexico and Rumford, said, “In my mind, the most effective police service we could offer to our people is if all three towns work together: Rumford, Mexico and Dixfield. Every town could reduce their force by one person and still get by OK.”
Pickett said regionalization “sounds good,” but it’s a “flawed program.”
“I’m not really in favor of the town sharing a police chief just because I’m leaving,” Pickett said. “The way I see it, with me retiring, the Dixfield Police Department is driving around with four people until they hire a new chief, and as a result, they’re becoming a little vulnerable to what’s going on. I think the Dixfield townspeople are very pleased with what we’re giving them and the program we’re running. However, I’d be happy to sit down with (Mexico police Chief) Roy (Hodsdon) and talk about different ideas.”
Puiia asked Madigan if Hodsdon could draft a budget proposal for a shared police chief.
“This way, I can put something before our board and they can look it over and talk about it,” Puiia said. “We could talk about this all night, but I don’t think we can come close to making a decision until we have a proposal in front of us.”
Madigan agreed to ask Hodsdon to draft a proposal for Dixfield selectmen.
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- Mexico Town Manager John Madigan talks about the benefits of Mexico and Dixfield sharing police chiefs at Wednesday evening’s selectmen meeting at the Town Office.
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