AUBURN — The board of selectmen postponed a decision at its Monday night meeting on a traffic control ordinance after members of the police department, police commission and neighborhood watch voiced concerns over its effect on public safety.

“I think we need a little more thought on this,” said Selectman Russell C. Sullivan. “I hate to keep continuing this, but I want to do it right.”

The town has been working since March to develop a six-page ordinance dividing roadways into three categories requiring a different level of minimum traffic control in work zones: uniformed police officers with a marked cruiser, trained flaggers, or delineation via cones, signs or barricades.

The ordinance also spells out procedural guidelines for the conduct of officers and flaggers while working traffic control.

Police officers who spoke at the hearing said one particular provision, which would prohibit officers from leaving their work zone for other duties, was a threat to public safety in the town.

Officer Greg Santuccio said he has responded to unrelated police calls while going to or leaving a detail assignment, and would leave an assignment to respond to an emergency.

“My priority is to life and safety at that point, not to directing traffic,” he said.

Under the proposed ordinance, officers working on a detail could only respond to accidents in the immediate work zone.

The officers at the hearing, however, said that fines stipulated in the ordinance for leaving the area would not prevent them from responding to outside emergency calls.

“I’ll pay the $500 fine the first time a life needs to be saved,” said Lt. Charles Pelton, who served on the Traffic Control Ordinance Committee.

“I’ll cut the check right now,” replied Santuccio.

Steve Vanni, chairman of the committee that drafted the ordinance, said that officers leaving their assigned work zone could create liability issues for the town, if an accident took place on the scene in their absence.

“If something happens while you’re gone, that could be construed as breach of contract on a legal basis,” he said.

“That’s another can of worms the town has to be very careful about.”

Police officers also raised the point that having officers work on details during their time off meant additional law enforcement personnel on the street.

Pelton said that the department regularly usually has one officer working during the day and two for the evening shift.

“If we had one detail officer, we have 33 percent more police officers on the road,” he said.

Vanni said although popular perception was that having extra police officers on detail would make the town safer, the committee’s research found no data to support that.

“There is no statistic out there that can show you a correlation that there’s less crime in a specific neighborhood because of traffic details,” he said.

Under the existing ordinance, in place since 1992, the assignment of police details is at the chief’s discretion.

Police Chief Edward Picard encouraged the board to reconsider an alternative ordinance submitted by the police department, which would keep him as the authority over detail work.

“This other ordinance, the more I look at it, the more I see it would jeopardize public safety and open up the town to enormous liability,” he said.

The board plans to next act on the ordinance at its Aug. 13 meeting.

klannan@newstote.com