By Margo Avakian

HALIFAX -The April 3 selectboard meeting was divided between a presentation by Windham County Sheriff Keith Clark and an effort to answer questions and concerns raised by attending citizens about the Honora Winery and its proposed event center.\

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Sheriff Keith Clark, before beginning his presentation, corrected Green on that last point.  “The only road you can’t reduce weight on is a state road,” said Clark, noting that state roads are rated for 80,000 lbs.

Clark told the selectboard that he is visiting all the area towns to let them know what services are available from the sheriff’s department and to answer any lingering questions arising from controversies in the department’s recent past.  Green said that the town had gotten a quote from former sheriff Sheila Prue, but had decided not to follow it up.  He asked if Clark could send the board information on what a contract would involve.  Clark said that the rates have changed.  “Before they used to charge only for the deputy’s hourly pay,” he said, “and that didn’t even cover our costs.”  The department now charges a flat fee of $40 per hour.  “That includes everything, including mileage.”  Clark added that the department no longer follows the former practice of issuing standard boiler plate contracts, but instead customizes each town’s contract to meet that town’s particular requirements. 

They are also consolidating the areas served by given deputies in order to increase efficiency, whereas previous practice had deputies crisscrossing the county in the course of a day.  This would mean that Halifax, if it contracted with the department, would be served by the same personnel as Whitingham and Marlboro, which currently have contracts. 

This should reduce response times and ensure that the town was dealing with a familiar deputy who knows the area.  Clark offered to send copies of some of the current contracts to the selectboard so they could see what sorts of arrangements and overall costs are involved.  Green asked him to do so.

Christina Moore asked about revenue sharing on tickets issued by the department.  “If a ticket is issued under municipal ordinance the town gets 80%,” replied Clark.  “Otherwise all the money goes to the state.  The sheriff’s department gets no money from fines.”

Clark observed that the state police are trying to get out of local policing, and that they now tend to handle such matters as house break-ins by phone.

The only other question fielded by the selectboard was a reminder that a town ordinance requires them to publish the grand list every five years.  “That’s easy,” said Green, “we can just put it in the town report.”

At that point, the public filed out and left the selectboard to read their mail and pay bills.