Milford police and government officials celebrate a major reduction in gun violence.
At a meeting on Monday, the city’s police chief, Cecilia Ashe, told City Council members that for the first time this decade, the city has gone without a single gun violence-related crime for more than 12 months.
“This year we have gone over 365 days with not one firearm homicide and not one shooting,” she said. “This is the first time since 2019 we've been able to accomplish that.”
Ashe, a former senior police official in Wilmington, has been Milford’s chief since 2023. While serving in the state’s largest city, she began work on a gun violence prevention program that partnered police with social service organizations and community leaders. She brought that program, based on the National Network for Safe Communities’ Group Violence Intervention method, to Milford. She credits the program in part with the drop in gun violence.
“This is a milestone that demonstrates the meaningful progress towards reducing firearm violence through proactive investigations, targeted enforcement, and collaboration with the community policing efforts,” she said.
Vice-Mayor Jason James applauded the news.
“There's a lot of guns on the street,” he said. “So for Milford, a growing city at the rate we're growing and still at that pace of growth to have 365 days reduction of no gun violence, this is a big deal.”
Crime is down overall as well. According to police officials, the city saw a 30% reduction in Part 1 crimes, like homicide, rape, arson, and aggravated assault.
City Council moves water and sewer money to balance budget
Council members also approved a transfer of $400,000 from the city’s water and sewer fund to help balance the city’s budget in the face of rising costs driven by inflation. It’s something Milford has done in previous years using money transferred from the city’s electric fund, said Louis Vitola with the city’s finance department.
“In [Fiscal Year] ‘27, we didn't want to lean on the electric fund for a third year in a row, but we still faced the same challenges, balancing the budget while keeping fees and taxes as flat as we possibly could,” he explained.
He noted that the strategy isn’t an ideal one.
“The bad news is that we had to rely on this creative method to balance a budget again. The good news is that we're off the electric fund,” he said. “We spread it across two funds, and it's a lesser amount than we've done in the previous couple of years, so that's the positive.”
Council members also approved some smaller transfers to cover higher-than-expected outside accounting costs and bank charges.
