Mars swears in new police officer-in-charge
MARS — The borough Police Department officially has new leadership, as Mayor Gregg Hartung swore in a new full-time officer-in-charge at a meeting Monday night.
Lt. Mark Lint, previously of the Butler County Sheriff's Office, took his oath at the meeting and will replace part-time officer-in-charge Lt. Beau Sneddon, who has led the department since 2019.
Sneddon will transition to the role of a regular part-time officer to manage both his roles at the borough Police Department and the Butler County Prison.
Lint has more than 20 years of experience in law enforcement as a police officer with the Carnegie Police Department and also has worked with the Franklin Park Police Department. His most-recent role has been as a part-time deputy with the Butler County Sheriff's Office. He also served in the U.S. Navy as a petty officer second class.
The change is part of Hartung's goal to expand the coverage of borough police in 2022. Hartung hopes to hire a second full-time officer sometime next year and to expand the department's collaboration with the Saxonburg police department.
The borough's police department has 11 part-time officers who provide anywhere from 16 to 24 hours of coverage on any given day.
Hartung said in the new year, he plans to work with Saxonburg Mayor William Gillespie Jr. and Saxonburg Chief of Police Joe Beecham to discuss further collaboration between the departments.
Hartung described the plan as a “mutual agreement.”
“We'll talk about how we'll do cross-training and how we'll swear in our part-time officers so that they can work in both departments,” Hartung said. “We'll actually give them more opportunity to work more hours between the two departments, and maybe have more officers be able to serve in both communities.”
Borough council also voted to cancel the budget meeting scheduled for Dec. 13 and reschedule a meeting for Dec. 20 to ratify the budget for 2022, to meet the 10-day public advertising deadline for the posted budget.
