More communities join Leechburg, Parks Township officials in police regionalization discussions

Correction: The original posting of this story did not say that Kiski Township was among those municipalities joining police regionalization talks. This update also clarifies when public input will be sought.

Leechburg and Parks Township are including more communities in their discussions about police regionalization.

According to D.J. Zelczak, a member of the steering committee and Leechburg Council, officials of Apollo, North Apollo and Kiski Township have signed letters of intent to participate in discussions about the next steps for policing.

Officials from those three municipalities could not immediately be reached for comment.

“There’s nothing certain yet,” Zelczak said in regard to regionalization. “We’re just finding out if this is a good idea or not.”

He said representatives from the five communities will meet Monday night for a steering committee meeting. They’ll be talking about some of the issues a consultant has asked the communities to consider.

“One thing we’re continuing to focus on is the budget,” Zelczak said. “What it would look like for all of us. The budget has to make sense. That’s one of the primary things.”

Leechburg officials have been talking about regionalization for some time. Leechburg previously formed its own regionalization committee after a regional police study was completed in December, and it recommended consolidating with Parks Township and West Leechburg.

West Leechburg has since removed itself from discussions.

The free study was conducted by the Pennsylvania Department of Community and Economic Development and took several months to complete.

Zelczak said the study is essential as the borough closes in on a decision on whether to regionalize.

“It was critical to put this proposal together based on a DCED study,” he said.

Kiski Township’s supervisors voted to join the DCED regionalization study Wednesday night.

Zelczak said if the communities decide to go through with the charter, representatives from each community would form a police commission that would oversee a centralized department.

“Who the operational leader (chief of police) of that police department would be, how that would look and the hierarchy of the department itself, those would all be points of discussion for all five communities to consider,” Zelczak said.

A meeting with the regionalization consultant is scheduled for Sept. 11.

“Within the next couple of months, we would hope to finalize something that would make sense and say as a steering committee, ‘OK, this makes sense,’ and then take it back to our individual municipalities, which absolutely have the final say on the matter,” Zelczak said.

“The individual township and borough governments are the ones who will make the final decision on whether this is a ‘go’ or not.”

Zelczak said before an official decision is made, there likely would be a public meeting to inform residents.