Unadilla Disbands Police Department

A little more than 2,700 people live in the city of Unadilla. That's according to Unadilla Councilman Dexter Whittaker.

As of Tuesday, Whittaker says, those people are without a police department. City council voted to ask the Dooly County Sheriff's Office to take over.

For three years, Councilman Dexter Whittaker and the Unadilla Police department worked together. As of Tuesday, that agreement is no more.

"These officers have been faithful. When it got down to two, they worked overtime and didn't complain. We had the meeting Friday, they voted to temporarily to disband the police department."

According to Whittaker, the decision was to temporarily shut down the police department, but when some officers came to work Tuesday, they got more than just an honest day's pay.

"These are the officers' separation notices. It says, the reason for them not working here anymore, is that the city of Unadilla Police Department was abolished."

The decision stunned Michael Thomas, who spent two years on the force.

"We could have had more officers if they would have went through the applications, and hired some more officers," he said. "We were begging for officers, begging for them to go through the applications. They were the city manager, the mayor, and some of the council."

We tried to talk to City Manager Ronnie Brand, but he refused an on camera interview. He did say the city is still trying to come up with a solution.

Sheriff Van Peavy is part of that solution. The city wants his department to take over the police department for a 6 month trial period.

"We have given them a contract to take over the police department, and give them a good police department with the man power they need" he said. "But doing it on a temporary basis, there's nothing we can do, except go through and patrol on our regular rounds."

"The people in Unadilla deserve a police department, and we're going to do the best that we can with what we got, to make sure they have protection" says Peavy.

The Dooly County Sheriff's Office and Unadilla city leaders will meet later to discuss a further agreement.