Lewisboro Board Examines Possibility of New Police HQ

LEWISBORO, N.Y. - The Lewisboro Town Board zeroed in on the upcoming budgets at a special work session at the Town House on Monday, Nov. 4 – with particular attention to the Police Department’s eventual need for a new headquarters building as well as public demand for 24-hour policing.

Along with several other town departments, the Lewisboro Police Department has occupied space at the former Lewisboro Elementary School since the school closed in 2014. The Katonah-Lewisboro School District owns the former elementary school, and the Police Department pays $22,000 per year to rent space. 

The arrangement is less than ideal, said Chief of Police David Alfano. 

“We do not have a generator, and we do not have a shower – God forbid we get bodily fluids on us or anything like that,” Alfano pointed out. “We’re not allowed to have juveniles there, either. So, there are three big discrepancies right now at the police station.”

The two issues are related, said Albano, because the Police Department would need additional space to plan for a third shift. Currently, it patrols from 7 a.m. through 11 p.m., with the State Police – which has a station on Spring Street in South Salem - serving as a backup during those off-hours. 

“It's a big topic,” said Chief of Police David Alfano. “I see people at events and functions, and everybody wants the night patrol. We’ve seen an uptick in commercial burglaries and not just that but with mental health [incidents] in general.” 

Alfano said when that happens in the wee hours of the morning, it can take 30-45 minutes for a State Police officer to arrive on scene to help transport a patient to the hospital. All police departments are overstretched, including State Police, he noted. 

“I did request for two full-timers for next year to be hired in the end of June or early [and then] to go through the Police Academy,” said Alfano.

“But do you have the space for them?” asked Deputy Town Supervisor Mary Shah. 

“That I don’t,” Alfano said. “So it is a problem.” 

Alfano described the current facility as “maxed out,” noting that the current locker room is used by 20 people, including himself. It is about the size of the Town House meeting room. In addition to the people who share the space, the Police Department must accommodate a lot of new equipment – such as the body cameras that officers now must wear. Moreover, officers need workstations to upload body-cam data to the cloud.

“My locker room has no room for any new hires – so if I was to try to put in an overnight [shift] it really wouldn’t work out,” he said. 

Fortunately, Alfano said the Police Department should be able to extend its lease with the School Board for the next few years.  

“They have guaranteed that they will renew the agreement till June of next year – and then we'll see whether we're going to be month to month again or they're going to give us another year,” he said.

Town Supervisor Tony Gonçalves noted that while “desperately needed,” building a new police headquarters is something that won’t take place for several years. “It’s in the very early stages but we need to start bringing in folks that can give us some ideas and thoughts on what this will look like,” Gonçalves said. One possibility would be adding on to the State Police facility, a measure he has raised with KSCJ Consulting, the town’s outside engineering firm. 

The property is town-owned but because of wetlands considerations, it remains to be seen how much of it is buildable. The town would also likely need to raise funding for the project via a bond measure, Gonçalves added.