By May 7, the city police force will have absorbed the Housing Police as a bureau. The Transit Police have already joined the consolidated force. This transfer will create a super-department of more than 38,500 officers and 6,000 civilians.
"We'll be able to handle our job much better," said Officer Louis Baez of the 42nd Precinct in Morrisania. "With more people out there, a bigger gang, we can have a faster response."
The plan has long been a goal of Mayor Rudolph Giuliani, who plans to save money in the move by dismissing some policemen who are doing redundant jobs in the three separate departments. The transit and housing police will remain intact as separate bureaus within the city police department.
Citizens should notice no change in everyday police services, said Lt. Robert Valentino, of the newly formed Transit Bureau. The bureau will keep its 4,281 officers, but an unknown number of civilians will lose their jobs, Valentino said. One person who already lost his job was Housing Police Chief John Prichard, who was replaced by Kenneth Donahue as head of the new bureau.
But the change doesn't suit everybody.
"The merger shouldn't have happened," said Lynn Gardiner, of the Sharon Baptist Head Start program at the Morrisania Houses. "There are too many housing projects in the city for the regular police to cover. They don't respond to domestic disputes -- how are they going to catch somebody hopping a train?"
City Councilman Wendell Foster is searching for families willing to take in a French high school student for 10 days in exchange for a chance to return the visit.
"It would be a sharing and learning experience and an opportunity for families to send their kids to France inexpensively," said Foster, who represents Highbridge, Melrose and Morrisania.
The class of 20 students live in Lille, a city an hour outside Paris and a like distance from the Belgian border.
Classes from the school have visted here before, but this is the first year an exchange is being organized, Foster said.
The host family would be expected house and feed their guest and treat him or her as they would expect their child to be treated in France, Foster said.
Anyone interested in hosting a student from May 22 until June 1 should call the councilman's borough office at 588-7500.