Nov 2, 2025 By Jon Andreassi 4 min read

Four municipalities recently voted on forming a regional police department, but only Mt. Pleasant Township and McDonald are currently moving ahead with the idea.

Mt. Pleasant’s board of supervisors approved a charter for the Northern Washington County Regional Police Department at their Oct. 22 meeting, and McDonald followed suit at their Oct. 23 meeting.

Midway’s council held a special meeting on Oct. 23 where they rejected the charter, and at an Oct. 27 meeting, Robinson Township’s board of supervisors failed to secure a second motion to even bring the matter up for a vote.

Currently, Midway contracts McDonald’s police department to provide coverage, while Robinson has a contract with Mt. Pleasant. Matthew Tharp, the Mt. Pleasant police chief, and a post on the McDonald police Facebook page indicated these contracts would continue while the two communities work toward merging their departments.

Tharp said regionalizing police services would allow communities to pool their resources and offer more competitive wages to have an easier time hiring and retaining officers.

“For us and McDonald, we currently have the two police departments, and we have had difficulty in getting candidates to apply,” Tharp said.

According to Tharp, the regional department will have 12 full-time officers and two part-time officers once it gets up and running. Tharp hopes that could happen by April.

Timothy Motte, the chief of police in McDonald, did not return a phone call seeking comment by Friday’s deadline.

Robinson Township Supervisor Mary Donaldson said Friday that her concerns with joining the regional police department are how it would affect the community’s finances.

According to Donaldson, Robinson Township is already prepared to hike taxes over the next two years. Currently the rate is 1.4 mills, and by the end of 2027 Donaldson said it will be 3.9 mills.

If they joined the regional police department, Donaldson said the millage could jump as high as 5.23.

“I just feel we can’t tax the residents to death. We have to balance our current budget and start working in the positive before we start taking on a bigger expense with regional policing,” Donaldson said.

Robinson’s policing contract with Mt. Pleasant lasts through 2027. Donaldson said they currently pay $255,500, and next year will pay $268,275.

“If we go regional, our starting price is ($343,000),” Donaldson said.

Donaldson suggested that the supervisors could still join the regional police department down the road.

“I’d be open to revisiting it next year. I’m not against it. At a certain point we’re going to have to merge with other municipalities to have policing,” Donaldson said.

Due to a communication error, Jason Dhans was not at the Midway council meeting to vote on the charter. He said he thought the meeting would be on Oct. 27.

“I didn’t check my emails, because I didn’t think anything was coming up,” Dhans said.

According to Dhans the vote against the charter was unanimous, but if Dhans had attended he would have voted in favor.

Dhans noted that Midway was being offered a cheaper rate to join, and said the price of admission is worth having a police force.

“It’s going to cost us money but without police what do you got? You got a lawless society,” Dhans said.

Though McDonald and Mt. Pleasant have indicated the existing contracts will be honored, Dhans is still concerned their contract with McDonald could be in jeopardy. He noted that each party can give 60 days notice to cancel the agreement.

“We might lose our police, and that’s a fear of mine,” Dhans said.

Dhans added that he hopes people will look at regionalizing police services as a safety issue.

“People here are seeing it as a dollar sign and not safety, and I can’t deal with that,” Dhans said.

In the meantime, Tharp said he and Motte are “excited to work together” as their departments form the Northern Washington County Regional Police Department.

“With this merger, I do believe they will be better protected and better served than before,” Tharp said.