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Bridgeport City Councilman sees problems with anti-drug squad vote

BRIDGEPORT, W.Va. — A Bridgeport City Councilman is suggesting that the town will need to come up with an alternative solution on their recent vote to partially fund a new officer for a Tactical Diversion Squad in Harrison County.

Councilman L.J. Maxey, who was among three dissenting votes in a 4-3 vote to adopt the resolution, said the Drug Enforcement Agency is unlikely to accept the funding mechanism that Bridgeport has set up.

“It’s not the place of, particularly a group of council members, to try to put together a funding vehicle for one of these positions,” he said. “That’s not how these are accomplished anywhere in the country.”

Before retiring in 2009, Maxey worked in law enforcement for more than 30 years. He served in the West Virginia State Police from 1974 to 1987, with the D.E.A. in Rochester, New York from 1987-1991, and then back to Harrison County with the D.E.A. in 1991.

“I came back here in 1991 to the Clarksburg D.E.A. Office right when it was starting to get off the ground,” Maxey said. “There was just me and one other agent.”

That’s one reason Maxey says he’s passionate about expanding the available resources to fight against the opioid epidemic.

Bridgeport City Council voted earlier this month, along with the City of Clarksburg, to provide $40,000 to the Harrison County Sheriff’s Department. That money would allow the Sheriff’s Department to hire a new Deputy who would then be trained for a D.E.A.-led Tactical Diversion Squad.

“Citizens of Bridgeport already pay county taxes and are paying taxes to fund the Sheriff’s Department,” Maxey said. “Now we’re giving the Sheriff’s Department, so to speak, a double portion of Bridgeport taxpayer’s money for law enforcement.”

Tactical Diversion Squads focus primarily on opioid and prescription painkiller investigations. West Virginia already has one operating out of Charleston, but there is support among local, state, and national representatives to bring one into West Virginia’s northern district–in either Wheeling or Clarksburg.

The alternative to Bridgeport’s currently accepted resolution, Maxey said, is to fully fund an officer from the city’s police department–which is more in line with how these processes normally function.

“I along with a couple of other members of council believe it’s the best way to go,” he said. “It also gives us a police officer that’s going to get the training, the experience, that ultimately he will bring back to the Bridgeport Police Department.”

If that plan were accepted, Maxey would then want the town to hire a new police officer to replace the officer who joins the Tactical Diversion Squad. That would cost in excess of $60,000 when you include the benefits package for a police officer in Bridgeport, but Maxey said it’s more cost-efficient in the long-term.

“It makes no sense to me that you wouldn’t want your police department, and a police officer in your police department, exposed to this training, this expertise,” he said. “It’s going to pay long-term benefits.”

“I just don’t want a Bridgeport police officer to miss the training and experience they are going to get from this.”

Maxey may have a chance to make his position a reality, though. A 45-day window for the D.E.A. to accept the joint-funding agreement is coming to a close, and Maxey believes the agency will ultimately not adopt this measure.

“I’m going to look for an opportunity to renew my motion for the full-time position, and I guess we’ll just see how council votes on it then,” he said. “I’m hoping that, if it remains 3-3, the Mayor will break that tie and vote with me this time.”

Bridgeport will operate next year with, approximately, a budget of $17 million. Maxey said that’s more than many county budgets, and Council should be willing to spend a little more to also enjoy the benefits that come with a Bridgeport officer’s engagement on a Tactical Diversion Squad.

“We’re going to be spending 25 percent on our budget on recreation,” he said. “We’re squabbling over $60,000 for the drug epidemic that is just hammering us.”

Maxey expects the D.E.A. to reject the joint-funding resolution later this week.





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