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While Bellevue voters earlier this month gave council authority to pursue consolidating police services with neighboring Avalon, Ben Avon, Ben Avon Heights and Emsworth, such a merger is not a done deal.

"I guess the Bellevue vote paves the way for some talks," Avalon Manager Harry Dilmore said of the amendment to Bellevue's Home Rule Charter approved in the Nov. 2 election.

But if talks do not start in the next couple of months, Dilmore sees little immediate hope of merging his police department's with Bellevue's anytime soon.

"We have a police contract that ends at the end of next year and will probably have to start negotiating by June," Dilmore said. "So we really need to start talking about this as soon as possible."

The contract for Bellevue's 13 full-time police officers, meanwhile, has been in arbitration for a year.

Bellevue Mayor Paul Cusick, a major proponent of the amendment, said he does not see contract negotiations, or even the lack of a contract, as an impediment to negotiating.

"Contracts can have a release clause, the way Ben Avon does with Kilbuck," Cusick said.

Bellevue residents voted 71 percent in favor of the change and 29 percent against it.

The vote was particularly gratifying to Cusick and other advocates of a merged police department, who narrowly lost a similar fight a decade ago, when a referendum failed by 44 votes. The two boroughs spent 18 months studying a merged police force.

"A lot of the information we gathered 10 years ago is still good and useful," Cusick said.

A new, enlarged department might lead to several service improvements, including allowing police to have more officers on duty during peak crime hours and fewer during slow times.

It also would enable formation of a detective unit. Bellevue now relies on Allegheny County detectives.

Bellevue has no part-time officers, while Avalon has 10 part-time officers and six full-time officers.

Cusick said he would like to eliminate the part-time police positions.

It was estimated a decade ago that consolidating the two police departments would mean $200,000 in savings for Bellevue and $50,000 in savings for Avalon.

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