UPDATE: Towns discuss possible police merger

UPDATE:  Frankford and Dagsboro council members told 47ABC that the meetings held Tuesday and Wednesday regarding a potential police merger were very productive.

Council members said they had a big turnout at both meetings, and that most residents seem to favor the merger.

Town officials said that the majority of concerns mentioned at the meetings were about funding, something councilmembers plan to discuss in weeks to come.

Frankford Treasurer, Marty Presley, said, “I think the two respectful councils will probably get together and try to hash out everything that we talked about the past couple of days. From our perspective, we’ll really need to crunch the numbers in Frankford and see how we can make it happen.”

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A small Delaware town is facing an unusual problem. Frankford does not have a police officer, and they haven’t had one since their only officer resigned in July.

Frankford treasurer, Marty Presley, said, “Right now, because of Chief Hudson’s resignation, we don’t have any police coverage full time. If we’re in need, we would have to contact the Delaware State Police.”

Fortunately, that is likely about to change, because the town has plans to team up with a neighboring community.

Presley said, “It had been discussed in prior years about the possibility of uniting the Dagsboro and Frankford Police Departments, so we thought with Chief Hudson’s resignation, it might be a good time to take a look at that again.”

Dagsboro Police Department has already begun helping out by providing one part-time police officer to the town of Frankford.

Dagsboro Police Chief, Floyd Tooney, said, “They have one part-time officer who is the officer in charge, and that officer actually works full time for me.”

That officer is Tyler Bare, a man who knows both Frankford and Dagsboro like the back of his hand.

Bare said, “He came to me and requested if I could be the officer in charge. Just to take accountable the gear, the weapon, the vehicles and that such.”

Bare said he believes uniting the two departments is a great idea. He said, “I do believe it’s necessary for the both towns. Just having that resource available to them at any time would be beneficial in the case of any kind of emergency whether it be something small to something very large.”

Presley said the local community has differing opinions about the merge. He said, “I’ve heard from both sides. There’s some people who are really concerned about the crime in Frankford and the increased drug presence, and then there’s obviously people who are concerned about the budget and not wanting to have their taxes increased to pay for it.”

Meetings to discuss the merger will be held on Tuesday and Wednesday. Council members are urging the local community to come out and voice their opinions.

Presley said, “Please come out. Have your voices heard because this is a decision that at a minimum, we’d be locked into for three years at a significant cost, so please come out and have your voices heard and learn as much as you can about it and help to make that decision.”

The first meeting to discuss the merger will be held at 7pm in Frankford Tuesday. The second meeting is scheduled to be held at 7pm in Dagsboro on Wednesday.

At the meetings, Chief Tooney will provide the public with an overall presentation about what the merger would look like.

We will continue to follow this story and update our website as we learn more.