Delmar Residents voice their complaints on police funding at town commission meeting

June 15, 2021

Rob Flaks,

Delmar, Maryland- Residents in Delmar spoke out over what they say is a long history of underpaid officers at a Delmar Town Commission meeting monday night.

“Its been 20 years of this it has been the same thing over and over by many councils,” said one woman who attended the meeting.

Local business woman Pam Price announced at the meeting she would be giving the town of Delmar 5,000 dollars to be used as a signing bonus for new officers, on one condition that she believes will compell the town to increase the police’s budget.

“We made it contingent on the pay raises and the starting pay, if its not done in 30 days they will not receive that money,” she said.

Price told 47ABC she wants to use the money to add pressure to the town commission to accept higher wages during negotiations with the police union.

Those negotiations have stalled and have moved to arbitration between the Town Commission and Teamsters 326, the union representing police officers.

Price told 47ABC she is giving the money to the Town Commission versus the officers directly in the hopes of giving the town a reason to soften their negotation position and solve what she viewes as systemic issues in the department.

“We need aggressive action to get our officers back and running again,” she said.

Mayor Karen Wells didn’t accept or turn down that offer during Monday’s meeting.

She said she understands the anger in the wake of Cpl. Heacook’s death, and that she too, felt angry.

“I’ve had tons of it , anger at our legislators for tying the hands of our law enforcement, anger at a justice system that let the man walk free and angry at some of you and I lashed out and regrettably so,” she said.

Delmar Police Chief Ivan Barkley spoke at the meeting, and outlined changes his department had made in the wake of Cpl. Heacook’s death.

“We have been offering overtime to compensate for shift shortages in an attempt to have two officers working,” he said adding “it’s still not enough to guarantee two offiers on the same shift.”

Multiple residents at the meeting voiced concerns that if those conditions persisted, officers would leave Delmar P.D. and join other eastern shore police departments.

“Something’s gotta give so you can get the amount of people that you need to stay,” one resident said.