(4/30) Liberty Township Supervisors voted to reject a bill sent from the Carroll Valley Borough Police Department during their April 2 town meeting. The bill covered police services rendered to Liberty Township after Chief Brand Briggs resigned last November.

After several months of discussion, Liberty Township Supervisors voted, in March, to hire a new Police Chief while keeping their own police department. This meant rejecting a proposal from Carroll Valley to cover police services for the township. Carroll Valley responded to the rejected proposal by saying that answering Liberty Township’s calls was interfering with the borough’s primary responsibility to their own residents. Additionally, Carroll Valley’s Police Chief Richard Hileman proposed a bill be sent to Liberty Township to cover the cost of services rendered since Chief Briggs resigned. The $4,559 bill included approximately 68 hours of service to Liberty Township. Chief Hileman noted that the suggestion was made by Liberty Township Supervisor Bob Jackson.

During the April 2 meeting, Liberty Township resident, Bob Keilholtz, questioned Supervisor Jackson’s reasoning for requesting a bill be sent to Liberty for police services rendered in the absence of Police Chief Briggs. Jackson responded by stating, "Whatever I said was between me and Rick Hileman… they [Carroll Valley] were not going to carry the weight of Liberty Township on their budget, [because] Liberty Township was not contributing to Carroll Valley’s activities in accordance with our agreement…they will not accept free-loading. Liberty Township will carry our own weight, pay our own bills and pay for what services were provided."

When asked where the money would come from to pay the $4,600 bill, Jackson stated that no decision was made to accept the bill. No one spoke to where the money would come from.

Once asked for a vote and final discussion, both Mickey Barlow and John Bostek voted against paying the bill. Barlow reminded Supervisors that within the intermunicipal agreement, both as it currently stands and the newly proposed version, there is no monetary exchange/expenses for either municipality involved. Therefore, Liberty should not have to pay the bill for police services rendered while they were without a Police Chief. The bill was also sent to Liberty Township’s interim Police Chief, Cpl. Andrew Hansen, for review, and upon review Hansen noted that he believes Carroll Valley charged the township for a lot of things, some of which were not justified.

Jackson, on the other hand, voted in favor of paying the bill, stating: "I don’t want to make any ill-will towards Carroll Valley. We have been working closely together for years, and I think we should consider making some sort of restitution for the time they spent working in our township." The bill was rejected with a vote of 2-1.

In regards to the new intermunicipal cooperative agreement proposal, Supervisors voted to table the topic until a future meeting. Supervisor John Bostek stated that the agreement was sent to the new Police Chief, Sherri Hansen, for review, and he was awaiting her comments.