Baltimore County police have no plans to move out of their Hillendale substation, despite a new landlord who?s a convicted heroin distributor, officials said.
The station is housed in the Hillendale Shopping Center, which recently was purchased by Meir Duke, a Reisterstown shoe store chain owner who served four years in federal prison on cocaine and heroin distribution charges.
The police department?s lease with the original owner will be extended indefinitely, said police spokesman Bill Toohey, who said he is “aware” of Duke?s criminal background, but emphasized the department is not signing a lease with Duke.
“We?re not saying we?re going, and he?s not saying we must get out,” Toohey said. “We?re just continuing.”
The substation is the county?s only community resource center and contains meeting space for civic organizations and officers of the county?s parole and probation unit.
The station is one of three in Baltimore County designated for the grant-based C-SAFE program, a state and local partnership that targets offender recidivism in high-crime areas.
But community leaders said their fear of losing police presence has not been abated, and county officials aren?t helping.
“The residents, property and business owners of the Loch Raven Community, and specifically, our neighborhood of Hillendale, deserve complete answers to address our concerns on the status of losing or keeping the valued and necessary asset of police presence,” said Donna Spicer, community activist and member of the Greater Loch Raven Business Association.
Spicer said she hopes state funding for the C-SAFE funding will guarantee the station remains in place, or at least elsewhere in the community. She said Duke, who declined to comment for this article, told her he may terminate the lease with the police this year, or at most extend it until next year.
The state is hosting a grant application seminar today and a county representative will attend, Toohey said.
Alex Ray, a spokesman for the Governor?s Office of Crime Control and Prevention, said the funds available for the program are unknown at this point.
