While discussions about the parking garage project topped the agenda for the March 19 meeting, Oxford Borough Council also handled a number of other items that night.

Oxford Borough Council approved a resolution urging state lawmakers to allow municipal police to use speed timing equipment. Pennsylvania’s current regulations only allow the State Police to utilize radar for traffic enforcement, not local law enforcement agencies.

Pennsylvania is the only state in the U.S. that does not allow its municipal police to use radar, and municipalities have long advocated for a change. Radar is the most accurate and modern method of enforcing local speed limits. However, any time legislation is introduced that would allow municipal police to also use the speed timing equipment, it gets bottled up in committee in Harrisburg.

Council member Peggy Ann Russell said that it is definitely time to allow municipal police departments to utilize speed timing equipment.

“This needs to be done,” she said.

Russell is involved with the ACE Anti-Human Trafficking Alliance, and she said that the speed timing equipment could help police identify more people who are speeding, which could in turn lead to identifying someone involved with human trafficking.

Mayor Lorraine Durnan Bell issued a proclamation intended to raise awareness about sexual and domestic violence.

In her report to borough council, Bell outlined the activities of the Oxford Borough Police Department for the last month. Bell and Oxford Borough Council lauded Corporal Scott Brown, who is serving as the interim police chief, for his work leading the department. The police department went a full month without any overtime being necessary.

Borough resident Andrew Atkinson, a former council member, was appointed to serve on the Civil Service Commission. In order to serve in that role, Atkinson had to step away from the borough’s vacancy board. The vacancy board is only convened when Oxford Borough Council is deadlocked on a vote to fill a vacancy.