JC Village Board Decides on Shared Police Agreement with Binghamton

10/2/2012 (Updated 10:54:45 PM)

(Source: Kate Thornton)

After a month of back and forth among the Johnson City Village Board, a decision was been made Tuesday night on the inter-municipal agreement (IMA) with Binghamton.

The decision was to keep the IMA the same.  This means Johnson City and the city of Binghamton will continue to share a police chief and two assistant chiefs.

Last week at a work session, the village board was pretty split between making changes to the IMA or not.

But, at the most recent work session held Tuesday night, the majority of the board felt the IMA deserves to remain the same, at least for another year.

"We're just doing our due diligence to look through everything and make sure we're making a sound choice here," said Johnson City Mayor Greg Deemie.  "We feel at this point it's what we should do."

"I think we need to make some changes, and we're going to have to do that within the scope of the IMA and work with the chief and the assistant chiefs," said Johnson City Village Trustee Bruce King.  "Since we have no ability right now, if you don't have the votes, you can't change a policy."

Deemie said he and Binghamton Mayor Matt Ryan are in talks to work out some issues, and have better community between the village and the police department.

Police Chief Joseph Zikuski was present at the board's discussion, but decline to comment on the matter to the media.