Lansdale Borough Police Department officers pose for a group photo after the department’s 2022 awards ceremony on Wednesday, Jan. 18 2023. (Photo courtesy of Lansdale PD)
Police to seek another potential candidate.
The news is mixed for the Lansdale Borough Police Department’s plans to reach full staffing in 2025.
Police Chief Mike Trail gave an update last week on two new hires the town approved in September — one of which may have to wait.
“Following the business meeting, we made conditional offers of employment. Thursday morning, I received an email from one of the candidates, withdrawing from the process,” said Trail.
“So we have hired one. They start the academy on Monday,” he said.
In 2023 the department added four new officers, after lengthy talks in 2022 about increasing the department’s staffing levels to keep up with the population growth of the town and help tackle quality-of-life issues like parking and traffic troubles. Those four hires in 2023 brought the department up to a recent high of 29 officers, the chief told the public safety committee in early September, and in spring council authorized an updated candidate last for new hires due to up to three officers that could leave within the next few months.
During council's Sept. 18 action meeting, that group voted unanimously to make conditional offers of employment to two candidates, after an executive session held just before the meeting. Sine then, Trail told the public safety committee on Oct. 2, one of those offers was declined, and the other is about to start formal training.
"They'll be in the (police) academy through March — with field training, we expect to see them on the street, probably around June of 2025," he said.
To fill the second expected vacancy, the chief said, he's asking permission to revisit the borough's civil service commission to find another one or two candidates from their list of eligible applicants who have already been vetted.
"We create an eligibility list of people who could be certified to be hired, and then we create a hiring list. Since we hired off the list, we have to go back and say 'We made a hire, we want to hire again, we need to move a couple of names from the eligibles to the certified list,'" Trail said.
Doing so could be completed within the next few weeks, and the chief is working with the civil service commission's solicitor to determine whether the second hire could be done by council in October, or would need to wait until November, likely the latter.
New Lansdale police Officer Karly Harney, center right, receives her oath from Mayor Garry Herbert during the council meeting on July 19, 2023. (Photo courtesy of Lansdale Police Department)"So does that mean the likely next hire would miss the cutoff for attending the academy?" asked committee chairwoman Meg Currie Teoh.
That depends, Trail said, on what training and background the next hire has: if they've already completed police academy training they could join sooner, and some police academies offer new sessions that start in January. A candidate on that timeline would likely graduate in summer 2025, then need to complete roughly 16 weeks of field training, meaning they'd be on patrol in town near the end of next year.
"It takes a long time to get the folks out on the street," Trail said. "But we got one, which is good."
One other police-related item: Mayor Garry Herbert announced in a September "Mayoral Musings" column that police are rolling out a "Handle with Care" registry, whereby residents can submit information about any special assistance or needs they might require from first responders during emergencies. Several residents have already signed up for the registry, Herbert said Wednesday, and those interested in doing so can contact the department, or sign up via a QR code posted on their Facebook page.
"This is just another part of our formalization of process. We are an accredited department, so keeping things in accredited fashion is important, and making sure that we are professional in our approach is always top of mind," Herbert said.
Lansdale's borough council next meets at 7 p.m. on Oct. 16 and the public safety committee next meets at 6:30 p.m. on Nov. 6, both at the borough municipal building, 1 Vine Street. For more information visit www.Lansdale.org.
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