Washington Twp. reorganizes, expands police force
WASHINGTON TWP. — Washington Township supervisors re-organized and expanded the police department to operate 24 hours a day at their meeting Wednesday.
The supervisors unanimously voted to accept Ray Moody’s resignation from the police superintendent’s position and to eliminate the position.
In a series of 2-1 votes, the supervisors promoted Carl Fronzaglio to part-time police chief at $22 an hour with no benefits and hired one full-time officer and three part-time officers. Supervisor Charles E. Yusko cast the dissenting vote on each motion.
Patrick Schmidt II is the full-time officer and Steven Kenyon, Tim Lemley and Robert Cunningham are the part-time officers.
Moody’s resignation prompted the supervisors to re-organize the department, Supervisor Jan Amoroso said after the meeting.
The superintendent used to run the department and there was no chief’s position in the department, Amoroso said. The chief will run the department now, she said.
The full-time officer was hired to replace an officer who resigned, but the three part-time officers are in new positions.
Dan Moody, chairman of the board of supervisors, said the department now has six part-time officers and three full-time officers and will now operate 24 hours a day.
“Our plan is to populate every shift with a police officer,” Dan Moody said. He said Ray Moody is a distant relative.
Fronzaglio said he will work mostly afternoon shifts and some night shifts and he will spend those shifts on patrol.
Three other personnel changes were made, including Yusko’s resignation as a roadmaster.
After the meeting, Yusko said he will continue serving as a supervisor but decided to step down as a roadmaster to avoid the appearance of a conflict of interest with his work leading the road crew and his job with the Washington Township Municipal Authority.
He said Amoroso is the remaining roadmaster. Amoroso said she also works for the authority.
Another change was removing Jamie Miller from the authority’s executive board for being absent from six consecutive meetings without providing an excuse.
Yusko said Miller was ill for a time.
In addition, supervisors voted 2-1 to eliminate an office staff position held by Kimberly DeLeonibus. Yusko voted against the motion.
Amoroso said the position was advertised as part-time, but became full-time and is no longer necessary.
The job of answering phone calls in the township building will continue to be done by the 24-hour answering service Teleplex Inc.
Supervisors voted 2-1 to hire Teleplex for $125 a month to have an operator answer the phone, take messages and then email those messages to the supervisors, road crew or zoning officer so they can reply. Yusko voted against the motion.
The first thing people who call the township building will hear is a recording telling them to call 911 if the call is an emergency. The operator answers after the recording, Dan Moody said.
In other business, the supervisors:
n Appointed K2 Engineering of Uniontown to administer the Uniform Construction Code.
n Appointed Horner, Wible and Terek of Greensburg to audit of the township’s 2015 finances for $3,000.
n Adopted a resolution to obtain three credit cards from PNC Bank.
n Agreed to buy a Ford F-550 dump truck with a snow plow and salt spreader for $75,351 through the CoStars state cooperative purchasing program.