per Lauren Lesher shared information she printed from the PSP Community Access to Information Dashboard at the Feb. 12th Woodward Township Board of Supervisors Meeting. D. Everett Smith/Sun-Gazette Correspondent

Pennsylvania State Police Trooper Lauren N. Lesher spoke at a recent meeting of the Woodward Township Board of Supervisors, sharing crime statistics based on calls to state police from the area.

“I think the biggest issues you guys have been having here are traffic safety on the corridor,” Lesher said. “We have had four DUI crashes, six distracted driving crashes. There were 41 total crashes…for 2024. We have written…455 citations in Woodward Township alone.”

Many drivers also have been stopped for expired registrations or inspections.

“They have two weeks to respond to that written warning showing us that they’ve made the repairs if they have not been issued a citation,” she said. “So we kind of try to give them some leniency to try and fix their errors because a lot of times people are driving or they don’t even know that their registrations expired or their inspection’s up because they haven’t looked at the sticker or something like that. We have written roughly 86 warnings, I believe it was.”

“Do you guys have license plate standards now?” board Chairman Jeff Stroehmann asked

“We do,” she said. “We have automatic license plate readers. So when we’re driving down the road, it’ll start beeping at us in the car, the computer will…bring up a picture of the license plate, then it takes a far away picture so we can see what area you were on the road so we can see which car it is.”

The trooper used statistics from a public website — reports.y.pa.gov/psp/powerbiui — run by the state police. It lists traffic and crime incidents by town.

Further information she gave from the site included 10 overall drug offenses. From June 2024 until mid February this year, there were 19 “crimes against society.”

“That includes disturbance, disorderly conduct, [Protection From Abuse/Restraining Order] violations, things like that.” She said, adding that “crimes against a person, [like] assault and harassment, there’s been 18 of those.”

More serious but less common calls included three death investigations and two regarding Megan’s law.

Lesher mentioned 20 property crimes and 70 others, such as 911 hang-ups, domestics, etc.

“That would be trespassing, criminal mischief and anything like that. And then 70 requests for service — so disabled motorists, abandoned vehicles, alarms, things like that. You guys are pretty active up here. We are very active in the community,” the trooper said.

“[Residents] may not…think that we’re around, but that’s a good thing,” she said. “If you don’t see us, and that’s probably a good thing, because we’re doing our job correctly,” she said.

After the meeting, Stroehmann praised Lesher, saying, “Trooper Lesher did a great job at our monthly meeting. She is a testimony to the professionalism of the Pennsylvania State Police.”

In a related matter, Stroehmann said a special meeting would be held for owners of river lots in Woodward Township and Linden on March 5 at 6 p.m.

“We just want to mention to everybody that one of the changes that we’re going to do on the river lots is we’re going to ask the people…to work with us on implementing a universal numbering system for 911 [calls],” he said. “We’re going to ask them if they will assist us in creating a…plan for their lots.”

“And then we’re going to provide, at a cost, the placards to be able to number them and the posts. The main purpose is to assist 911 if they [need to] respond if they get a call,” he added.

In other business at the meeting, a list of bills that the township provided is below:

Stroehmann mentioned that $1,850 was paid to the Drier Law Firm for services and $1,761 was paid for salt for the hazardous weather.

Also in attendance were township Supervisors Joseph Bertin and Wayne Robinson.

The next regular meeting will be on Wednesday, March 12, at 6 p.m.