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Wilson Borough Police won’t be providing police coverage in West Easton Borough.

The Safety Committee, consisting of Councilmen Dan DePaul, Henry Nodoline, and myself (Matthew Dees) presented their opinion that contract negotiations were not worth pursuing further, as a stalemate was reached with regard to the cost for West Easton. We had been meeting with Wilson Borough representatives in the hope of coming to an agreement for Wilson to provide local police protection.

Wilson Borough’s final offer was $250,000/yr with a 5% increase to follow each successive year for full-time coverage.

Wilson Borough would not consider an amount lower, nor would they consider an option of part-time coverage, similar to that the City of Easton provided before Easton’s Mayor Sal Panto refused to renew our contract.

Our quick math determined that at the end of only 4 years, West Easton would have to pay nearly $304,000 to renew a contract with Wilson Borough and the cost could only be expected to continue rising. It wouldn’t be long before monies needed for a contract simply wouldn’t be fiscally responsible toward residents.

To put an exclamation point on the cost, Councilman Robert Lewis had prepared a simple spreadsheet that somehow anticipated a starting cost of $250,000 for a contract. He passed out his information following the Safety Committee’s disclosure of the cost, at last night’s Council meeting. The spreadsheet went beyond 4 years, anticipating a 5% increase for each year to follow over the next 14 years. It showed what monies would have to be pulled from the general fund and that from the current tax millage that would have to be used in order to meet the yearly increases.

Using Mr. Lewis’ figures, West Easton would use up the general fund monies and be, for all intent and purpose, broke in just over a decade unless a huge millage increase was enacted to keep a decent reserve in our general fund. That millage would also likely need to rise in order to maintain a decent reserve of funds.

I see no argument with the numbers Mr. Lewis presented to Council. Also, bear in mind his numbers assumes no major costs or emergencies occurred during the coming years that required using monies from the general fund, and that other expenses the Borough must meet each year remained steady.

West Easton Council decided to politely decline the proposal and pursue an alternate solution. I will have more on that alternate solution, which will be published late tomorrow afternoon.

Personally, I am appreciative of Wilson Borough representatives taking the time to sit down and make their proposal. I believe all on Council are appreciative of the willingness of them to have a dialogue. They could have simply refused to even discuss the matter with us, which would have been well within their right to do, as it was us who went to them with hat in hand. They did, at least, speak with us and gave us something that we could give consideration.

There are no hard feelings or ill will toward Wilson Borough that a contract, which would have been agreeable to West Easton, could not have been created between our two boroughs. We are border communities and like the Lehigh Road repaving done recently, there may be other projects that we can work on together, with shared costs and a benefit to both our communities. I hope they, in turn, will hold no hard feelings for our politely declining their offer.

All on West Easton Council look forward to working with Wilson Borough in the future on mutual projects.