Oxford’s century-old police department will be disbanded, with the borough joining several other municipalities under the service of a regional law enforcement agency next year, council decided during a meeting that grew contentious Monday.
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Council voted 5-2 to join the Southern Chester County Regional Police Department and Commission and approved a memorandum of understanding for the services, effective Jan. 1.
The decision comes after the borough has, for years, struggled to keep their police force from cutting too deeply into the municipality’s budget. Though Oxford’s financial health has in recent years been stronger than previously forecasted, maintaining the department without increasing taxes was becoming untenable, officials said previously.
But the choice to cut the department has stoked fears from the community, who have designed T-shirts and lawn signs, held protests, started petitions and social media pages, and turned up at meetings to oppose the effort.
On Monday, residents called on the council to retain their department or delay the vote. The meeting grew contentious. As people shouted from the audience, council requested that disrupters be escorted out several times through the hour-and-a-half-long meeting. As council weighed their vote, attendees shouted for them to “resign now.”
Under council’s vote, Oxford will now join nearby municipalities New Garden, West Grove, and Avondale for service through the regional department.
The regional department, formed in 2017, employs 21 full-time officers, who patrol and investigate, in addition to providing services like traffic safety, public outreach, and evidence management. The borough will have a seat at the table in the governance of the department.
The memorandum stipulates that the department will add 12 new officers to service Oxford, with a substation where officers will begin and end their shifts, according to borough officials. Two officers will be on patrol 24-7, as they currently are. Borough leaders hope to see the entirety of their 11-officer force accept positions in the regional department.
Still, residents have worried over the loss of their homegrown force, with concerns about sluggish response times or increased crime due to the regionalization.
Oxford police responded to about 4,400 calls for service, mostly for property and house checks, in 2023, according to the most recent data in a July analysis from Keystone Municipal Solutions.
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“What I pray to God does not happen, is that I have to get a call because we didn’t have a local police department to protect our residents,” said resident Henry “Ted” Ruffenach, a funeral director. “I don’t want to get that call. If it does happen, this will be on every one of your resumes.”
Bob McCarron, president of the Chester County Fraternal Order of the Police, called on the council to consider whether giving up local control was worth regionalization.
“It truly is a decision that, once you make it, you won’t be able to come back from,” he told them.
An attempt to table the decision, raised by council member Amanda Birdwell who argued she hadn’t talked to enough residents about their stance on regionalization, did not receive enough votes. She ultimately cast a dissenting vote against regionalization, joined by council member Raul Juarez-Lara.
“Even though people are being disrespectful and rude, we were still elected to represent them and I feel like another reason I asked to table is because while I know we all want this to be over with, we can’t make a decision because we’re mad that people aren’t being nice to us,” she said. “That’s irresponsible.”
But others felt it was the only sustainable way forward.
“I truly believe that the only way to maintain policing in the borough of Oxford … going forward, for my children, is regional,” council member Michael Brandt said. “We will not have a police force in less than several years at the rate things are going. I’m sorry none of you can listen to us and understand that.”
The borough will hold a town hall with the regional department’s police chief, Joe Greenwalt, on Thursday.
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