In less than two weeks, Kane-based state police will move — lock, stock and barrel, or rather locks, cuffs and holding cells — to a brand new barracks by the Bradford Regional Airport.
The barracks, currently located on U.S. Route 219 just north of Lantz Corners, will move to 130 Airport Road off Route 59 on Feb. 26. The location is across from the Pennsylvania National Guard Readiness Center.
That doesn’t mean area residents get a day without troopers on the road.
“The transition is seamless,” said Trooper Bruce Morris, public information officer for Troop C. “As far as general patrol, the patrol shifts will be going as usual.”
Barracks commander Sgt. Mary Gausman confirmed, “Everybody will be out and about. It will be business as usual.”
The barracks will be known as “Lewis Run-based state police” after the relocation, and the phone number will change. Instead of the current number, anyone calling the barracks directly after moving day should dial (814) 368-9230; and the fax number will be (814) 368-9236.
Gausman and Morris explained that administration and command staff have been moving things like files and paperwork from the old station to the new one, but that everything will be moved in one day.
“It’s everything in a day because we have to move the radio,” Gausman said of the dispatching and communication center for the barracks. “They come up from Harrisburg to do that.”
Morris explained individual offices, like the fire marshal or fraud investigation units, have been packing up files over a period of time to prepare for relocation.
“What troopers will do, before a shift or on time off, they will run up and grab the stuff from their locker to move to the new barracks,” he explained.
Gausman said the new barracks is almost 9,000 square feet, about twice the size of the current one. She anticipates the move to be completed on Feb. 26 by about 6 p.m.
“We will get dispatched out of Ridgway that day,” she explained. With the state police computer system, they could even be dispatched from Harrisburg if necessary.
“We will have people manning the phone at both places” on moving day, Gausman said.
The new location is centrally located, and Gausman said it was her and headquarters’ first choice of the options that were presented.
