Alyssa Cwanger, Post-Gazette Linda Shipley, of New Eagle, and her granddaughter, Breanna Mahlmeister, 5, of Amity, collect safety information during a seminar Wednesday at Finley Hall at St. Francis of Assisi Church in Finleyville. People learned the art of neighborhood protection, what to do until an ambulance arrives, and fire safety and prevention from the Finleyville and Elrama volunteer fire departments. Click photo for larger image.

For a quarter of a century, Paul Bleichner patrolled the streets and wrote citations in Union, a township of 5,599.

But at 11:59 p.m. July 9, before he was ready to call it quits, Bleichner and his community straddling Route 88 parted ways. A financial crisis prompted the board of supervisors to disband the eight-man police department some people considered a security blanket.

The financial collapse and debate over keeping the police department turned neighbor against neighbor. In the end, Union joined the burgeoning list of municipalities being patrolled by the Pennsylvania State Police.

"It's arithmetic," said Michael Foreman, local government policy specialist for the Pennsylvania Department of Community and Economic Development. "If you can't afford a police department, you have to make do without a police department."

DCED has been helping township officials get back on sound financial ground and find out why the budget went haywire.

The township consumed a $280,000 surplus in four years and ended 2004 with a fund balance $40,000 in the red, township auditor and former Supervisor Larry Spahr said.

While officials disagree about the extent of the township's financial plight and the reasons for it, Spahr said runaway spending in the police department played a key role in the nosedive.

Supervisors laid off police officers twice to help right the ship, but the police union, Teamsters Local 205, successfully challenged the layoffs in court each time. The union said the layoffs kept the township from honoring a commitment to have at least two officers working each shift.

Seeing few options for reining in spending, Supervisors Steve Parish, Linda Levandosky and George Uremovich voted June 27 to disband the department at 11:59 p.m. July 9. Supervisors Walt Lang and George Cheplic voted against the motion.

If the board hadn't axed the police department, it would have faced a $300,000 deficit at year's end. After taking that action, the township still might end the year $150,000 in the red, Spahr said.

In the run-up to the June 27 vote, monthly supervisors' meetings became hotbeds of debate for an outraged citizenry. The town was divided, police backers against fiscal realists and supervisors' supporters against political insurgents.

In the cross hairs were the officers people counted on to watch their children hustle to school, stop speeders on Route 88 and nab drug dealers who plagued parts of town.

"Nobody wants to see their local police department leave," said Gale Conrad, chairwoman of the Plymouth Township Board of Supervisors.

Plymouth, in Luzerne County, axed its police officers last year because of fiscal problems related to a flood in 1996.

"If we hadn't laid them off, the township would have shut down, and all the bank accounts emptied," Conrad said.

Getting rid of local and municipal police departments isn't a new phenomenon in southwestern Pennsylvania, either.

In 1985, after U.S. Steel significantly downsized its operations in Clairton, diminishing the city's tax base, the city's 16-member police department was scrapped. Protection was turned over to state police.

In Union, people are concerned about longer response times from state police. They're also grappling with the loss of the familiar; in a small township, people get to know the police officers, and vice versa.

"I knew these people, I knew the troublemakers from the upstanding," Bleichner said. "I miss them a lot."

Last week, in a meeting hall behind St. Francis of Assisi Church, in a room full of the old, the young, the angry, the content, the scared and the politicians, the healing of this small community began with the introduction of a Neighborhood Watch program.

People also heard reassuring words from state police, local paramedics and two volunteer fire departments. Trooper Brian Burden said people didn't have to put up with crime.

"This is your neighborhood, and all you have to tell folks is you won't take it," he said.

Some people left the hall feeling reassured about the nights ahead without a regular police department.

"I feel a lot better after listening to the state trooper," Sandy Dupree said.

As neighbors bid each other goodbye, Bleichner stood chatting with the townspeople.

"Are you working at all?" one asked him.

Bleichner, 66, shook his head.

"I wasn't ready for retirement," he said.