Delmont police settling into new, expanded station

When Delmont police used to interview a victim or a witness, the cramped quarters in their previous department made it difficult.

“You’d be talking to someone, and if we’d arrested a suspect, the suspect would be right there, basically able to hear everything,” Chief T.J. Klobucar said. “It wasn’t ideal.”

In addition, the former police station encountered flooding problems several times a year, endangering records and electronic equipment.

But borough residents — who in the recent past have also helped raise a significant chunk of the $1 million needed for a new library — once again showed their generosity, donating more than $50,000 to help relocate the police station within the borough building.

“Delmont is my second home,” said Klobucar, a Penn Township resident. “And no matter what we’ve done project-wise, people have always supported it.”

As soon as Delmont Public Library officials were done moving into their new building on School Street, Klobucar, borough public works head Bill Heaps and others got to work prepping the space for conversion into the new 3,000 square-foot police station.

The relocation coincided with long-needed maintenance on the borough building itself.

“We rolled up a lot of the other maintenance stuff into this project, because this is the basement, where a lot of the pipes are,” Klobucar said.

Today, the entirety of the old police department could just about fit into the new squad room, Klobucar said.

“We have a better, more isolated holding cell, we have an evidence room with a ventilation system, we have a conference room where we can actually hold meetings instead of doing everything in the squad room,” he said. “Everything is just more clean and accessible than before.”

From the start of the fundraising campaign to the completion of the project was about seven months, and included contributions from the community not just through donations but through some of the labor that went into the new station’s construction.

“I was out here helping pour cement at one point,” Klobucar said.

The department’s improved squad room is a testament to the teamwork that helped build the new station — it is named in honor of Heaps and in memory of his father William M. Heaps, who both worked for the borough.

“We couldn’t have done this without Billy (Heaps),” Klobucar said.

The department has come a long way since Klobucar was hired in 1998. At that time, it was housed in what eventually became the mayor’s office at the borough building, then moved to the basement and now into its new spot.

“Everyone from council to borough employees to residents had a part in it and took a lot of pride in it,” Klobucar said.

Officer Rob Jones, who has worked part-time as a Delmont officer for nearly 16 years, said it’s nice to be able to stretch out a little.

“I just like having so much more space,” he said. “Over on the other side of the building, we were on top of each other a lot and kind of had to make do. Now everyone has their own work area.”

Mayor Alyce Urban said she not only likes that officers have a better work environment, but also that it is more accessible and welcoming for the public.

“Our officers make themselves available to people,” Urban said. “People feel comfortable calling the chief and his officers because they have one thing in mind: taking care of the people in Delmont.”

That confidence means a lot to the chief, who has spent the past 23 years in the borough.

“It makes me feel really proud,” Klobucar said.