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Editorial Discusses State Police Cutbacks In NY

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#1 ·
While this editorial deals with the New York State Police I know that consideration is being made here in New Hampshire to at least partially cutback on keeping open New Hampshire State Police barracks around the clock. Under a plan dispatch services would eventually be shifted to Concord while some troop stations would go unmanned. Some feel this would have no impact on safety. That would not be the case if someone found himself or herself early in the morning seeking protection at the door of an empty troop station and have to rely only on an intercom outside that locked door.
As politicians and stingy taxpayers seek ways to keep more money in their pockets let's pay attention to the feelings already expressed by those who have faced this foolish trend.

From The PRESS REPUBLICAN

Decisions made from a comfortable chair in an office building in Albany don't always make sense in the real world, and Franklin County is facing that right now.
State Police officials are closing the communications center in Malone at the end of the month, leaving the public and social-service workers with less contact with the people sworn to serve and protect them.
County legislators and members of the Malone Town Council sent resolutions to Albany, opposing the Sept. 30 closure, which ends civilian-dispatch service at the barracks on Route 11.
An automated telephone will be installed at the front door, which people can use to speak immediately to police personnel at either the Plattsburgh station or Ray Brook Troop B headquarters.
The state says the change will save money and place more troopers on the road.
An armed trooper must be present in the barracks whenever civilian dispatchers are on duty.
Sergeants and Bureau of Criminal Investigation investigators will continue to work out of Malone, and the road-patrol troopers will still use the site to start and end their days.
But the calls that send a cruiser to an incident will be made by a dispatcher stationed at least 50 miles away.
And it is that distance and officers' unfamiliarity with the county's unique geography that have some officials worried.
Malone's territory is a fertile training ground for new Police Academy graduates who may not always know how to get to a remote site without in-depth directions, which, opponents say, could cost precious time in a crisis.
The close proximity of the St. Regis Mohawk Indian Reservation also contributes to the anxiety of some who feel the people who are trafficking marijuana, untaxed cigarettes and illegal aliens through that territory will be even more bold in their activities.
Statistics for the first six months of the year show the Malone barracks was the second-busiest station in all of Troop B, behind only Plattsburgh.
Malone also answered more calls than any barracks in Zone 2, which covers seven sites in St. Lawrence County, and Zone 3, which has eight barracks in Essex and Hamilton counties.
We believe people at the highest level of State Police administration meant well when they announced the closure to obey Gov. David Paterson's edict to trim state spending. Cuts have to come from somewhere. But, generally, while citizens support tax-limiting measures, they bridle at having them imposed on public safety.
 
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