Milford police chief says he’s hopeful for upcoming referendum on new headquarters

MILFORD, Del. – Milford Police Chief Kenneth Brown says he’s looking forward to a referendum vote that could get finally get the department a new headquarters. “It’s so desperately needed. To be quite honest with you I don’t know what we’re going to do if we don’t get it. This isn’t one of those things where it would be nice to have. No, it is needed,” said Chief Brown.

The current building was built back in 1979 and designed for only about 20 officers. Now the department has 37 officers on the force. Chief Brown says the building itself is in dire need of safety and accessibility upgrades. He says they were all set to get the ball rolling right before COVID-19, but the referendum had to be cancelled because of the pandemic. “We just suspended it because of COVID and because of uncertainty around COVID. Now, yes we’re still in COVID, but I think we have a little bit more of a grasp on COVID,” said Chief Brown.

Chief Brown says the upcoming rescheduled vote is the perfect opportunity to act. “Every year that goes by, the price increases anywhere from six to ten percent because of construction and inflation. We hate to keep pushing this off. We just had to add a half million dollars to it from April to now,” said Chief Brown.

The referendum vote is scheduled to happen in less than a month, on January 26th. Chief Brown says he’s hopeful that the people of Milford will show up to cast their votes.