While seeking expansion of its police department’s popular community relations program through a proposed partnership with Perkasie, Bedminster has promoted two corporals to the rank of sergeant.
The newly minted sergeants — Mark Thompson and Nicholas Virnelson — were sworn in during the Jan. 10 board of supervisors meeting.
The township is seeking a grant to expand the police department’s community program to Perkasie, with an eye toward eventually bringing it to all of Upper Bucks County.
At the swearing-in, District Judge Gary Gambardella, who served for 22 years as a county prosecutor before being elected to the bench, praised the Bedminster department’s officers, chief and staff for growing the program from “good” to “great.”
The grant application to the state Commission on Crime and Delinquency (PCCD) seeks the expansion of the program to Perkasie, through a full-time employee there under the supervision of Laurie Hepler, Bedminster’s Civilian Community Relations Specialist.
Perkasie Police Chief Robert Schurr appeared at the Bedminster supervisors’ work session last month to express deep interest in establishing a similar program in Perkasie, an interest he noted was shared by Mayor Jeff Hollenbach.
The long-term goal of the partnership is understood to be working toward “a regional capability, fully funded with federal, state, and nonprofit funding streams to provide these services to all the municipalities in Upper Bucks that have local police departments.”
The proposed expansion of the Civilian Community Relations Program to all of Upper Bucks recalls an innovative, grant-assisted social service program for police, originally deployed in Lower Bucks and now fully operational in nine police departments in Upper Bucks, as of last spring.
It provides for a “warm handoff from police officers” to a social service professional, so they “can get back on the street.”
That social service partnership program is being implemented as a partnership for each department with the Bucks County Human Services Division. The two-year agreements call for funding by the county, with any continuation to be covered by the county, the individual townships, and/or by inclusion in the new, proposed community relations program expansion.
Meanwhile, Hepler, previously a long-serving administrative assistant to Bedminster’s police department, has been serving since last spring as the department’s Civilian Community Relations Specialist, within a grant from PCCD. At that time, her duties were summarized by Police Chief Matt Phelan as “seeking to improve victim services; prevent crime; improve policy; and encourage community collaboration,” while “supporting the department, by taking over some of the duties that are not restricted to sworn staff, including (certain aspects of) victims services, crime prevention, communications, and policy improvement.”
As an example, he noted that she “will help with stabilizing victims’ lives after a crime, informing them of their rights, and improving their security and safety,” and also serving as “the point of contact for the victims immediately after the crime has been committed,” including “guiding victims through the criminal justice system, and helping them connect with local resources.” Since then, other community outreach programming has featured crime prevention efforts.
With the new initiative to expand the program’s reach beyond the township, similar and related services would also be realized by Perkasie residents, toward expansion to all of Upper Bucks.
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