Nassau paid $24K for village police consolidation study

Officials from two Nassau villages say they were not made aware of a study conducted by a retired NYPD detective regarding the possible merging of the Hempstead and Freeport police departments into Nassau's police force.
Nassau County paid $24,000 to retired Detective Richard "Bo" Dietl to conduct the study about the possible consolidation. His 13-page report was dated November 2014.
Officials from Hempstead and Freeport said they were outraged over the proposal.
"Bottom line is the Village of Freeport is probably the most proficient. We have 1 1/2-minute response time to calls. Nassau County is great, but we're not interested in combining services at all," said Freeport Mayor Robert Kennedy.
Nassau's Acting Police Commissioner Thomas Krumpter issued a statement touting the county as the safest large suburban county in the country, with crime at the lowest rate since statistics were first recorded.
"Successfully reducing crime is directly attributable to our officers, intelligence-led policing models and strategic communication. Together with these resources, the county is poised to further combat crime in the Villages of Hempstead," said Krumpter.
The Hempstead village mayor said in a statement, "Neither the village nor the police department were ever contacted or knew of this report's existence which was clearly not thought through or well researched."
News 12 reached out to the mayors of other Nassau villages to see if they had been contacted about a possible merger or if they had any interest in consolidating. The mayors of Lynbrook, Malverne and Floral Park told News 12 that they were not contacted and had no interest in merging with Nassau's force.