Expanding Police District Again on the Agenda
By M. D. Drysdale

Town Manager Peter Butterfield delivered Part Two of his critique of Randolph police coverage to the selectboard Monday night, hoping that his recommendations would lead the board to back a town-wide police force.

Currently, Randolph police serve, and are paid by, the residents of the Police District, which is within the old Village boundaries.

The selectboard, though not willing to dismiss their town manager's idea, clearly wanted some more time to think about it.

Thus, instead of voting yes or no, they asked for more information, and then more information.

They also heard an earful from two audience members who are opposed to expanding the police force- storekeeper Al Floyd of Randolph Center, and the outgoing public works supervisor, Joe Voci.

Two weeks previously Butterfield had introduced the topic with a discussion of the financial repercussions of a townwide force. The fact that only half the townspeople pay taxes to support the police force means that it can't pay its officers enough, he said, citing the fact that the force has recently lost two officers.

To serve the whole town, he estimated, the Department would need two more officers and one more vehicle. Residents of the village would see their taxes decreased by an estimated $343, he said, while residents outside the village would pay about $245 more.

Coverage Issues

This week, Butterfield focused on how police coverage would be improved by an expanded department. Last year, the police booked 1258 "incidents," he said, meaning police responses that required a case number to be assigned.

That amounts to almost four per day.

Those 1258 incidents produce a total of 115 arrests, he said.

Attempting to answer previous questions, Butterfield said that the police covered 94 incidents outside of the police district, or about 7% of the total incidents. Many of these were in support of state police or county sheriffs.

State police, meanwhile, attended to 629 incidents within Randolph and the sheriff's department arrested 17 people under their contract with the town.

Despite all this coverage, Butterfield told the selectboard, there are "gaps" when the village is left uncovered, and there are many periods when the village is covered by only one officer, with no back-up.

And State Police can't guarantee a response in under 45 minutes to a Randolph crime scene, he said.

Under his expansion proposal, he said, there would be no total gaps in coverage at all, and most shifts would have more than one officer on duty. Typically one would be patrolling in the village and one outside of the village, he said.

He defended that plan by noting that state police say that much of the drug dealing activity takes place in rural parts of the town.

"My recommendation stands" that the police force should be expanded, he concluded.

The board was not ready to move in that direction yet, however.

"These statistics are a good start, but they raise more questions," Selectman Steve Springer said. Board Chair Jim Hutchinson also ticked off other information he felt the board needed, including how crime rates here compare to other places.

"So where are we at?" demanded Selectman Larry Townsend.

It seemed to be the conclusion that the board would revisit the issue about every other meeting, gathering more information, and that they would schedule public discussions this fall, preparatory to a public vote on the question.