Police Department Too Big Already

I agree with Mr. Hildenbrand that Randolph should explore the possibility of eliminating our police force and will support a movement to do away with our police department or reduce it to just a few constables. Randolph does not need a police department as large as the one we have when the Vermont State Police barracks is just 10 miles south of us and the Orange County Sheriff’s Depart-ment is not much further than that to our east.

If Randolph officers expect exposure to an element of risk, they wait for back-up from the VSP before acting anyway. Why didn’t Chief Krakowiecki mention in his annual report how many times the RPD asked for assistance from the VSP?

If Randolph was made up of rich people it wouldn’t matter so much what it cost to have a police department like the one we have. However, Randolph is made up mostly of people, like me, who struggle with limited salary increases and ever-increasing living expenses and taxes, desperately trying to make ends meet.

Expanding the police district to help fund a police department that’s already too big, that’s trying to find a way to get bigger, doesn’t make sense. We’re told expanding the police district will bring in more tax revenue and reduce the overall tax burden on the people living in the police district.

Maybe that will be true initially, but it won’t help one bit if that extra revenue is used to justify the need for a newer, larger police department building. They’ve made it clear they want more space.

Making the police district larger isn’t the answer. To really help with the taxpayer burden, we need to downsize the police force, their enormous budget, and their operation needs. The operating cost of our police department isn’t going to go down simply by increasing the size of the area they patrol.

We should give some serious consideration to drastically downsizing our police department or doing away with it altogether.

Phyllis Reynolds

Randolph

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