Politics

Ellwood City Borough Council will vote on a motion to advertise for a full-time patrol officer at its regular meeting next Monday. The motion was added to the agenda at Monday’s agenda meeting after a discussion. [Correction 12 a.m.: The motion will advertise the position, not hire an officer.] The police department currently has one lieutenant, one sergeant, eight full-time patrol officers and one part-time patrol officer. Council member Judi Dici started the discussion with statistics concerning overtime rates for the police department. According to numbers read by Dici, overtime costs for January through March are $42,606.84. According to borough…

In December 2015, council passed a motion to change the police schedule. That motion, proposed by former council member Ralph Chiappetta, was approved unanimously but was never implemented. In a letter to the Ellwood City Ledger, Chiappetta stated he believed the schedule change would save $50,000 in overtime a year. However, Mayor Anthony J. Court, who is in charge of the police department, believes it would not save money and may even increase police costs. Chiappetta has visited council several times to ask them to enforce the motion with a Writ of Mandamus, although at the meeting on March 21…

At Monday’s meeting, the Ellwood City borough council struck down a motion to advertise for a part-time patrol officer. An alternative, hiring a full-time officer, was discussed but no decisions were made as council wished to research the matter further. Council member Marilyn Mancini first brought up her reluctance to hire a part-time officer, pointing out that recently council approved two part-time officers, neither of which committed to the positions. In addition, the borough paid for tests for one of the candidates amounting to over $700. She added that Lt. David Kingston, the police department’s ranking officer, advised that part-timers…