NEW IPSWICH — The town is moving forward with its study to determine whether developing a regional police department is in the community’s best interest, and now the size of the committee looking at the issue is being increased.

In April, at the request of a resident, the board of selectmen formed a four-member committee to examine the idea of joining with another town or two to create a regional police department, and last week, after a review of that committee’s report, the selectmen decided to move forward.

Selectman Michael Conlin said the board voted last Tuesday to expand the committee to include three more members, including if possible, a police officer from town.

“I feel like we need to have the police department represented, because this issue affects them directly,” Conlin said. “We’re not sure any of the officers are willing to sit on the committee, but I think it’s important.”

New Ipswich has its own force led by W. Garrett Chamberlain, but the neighboring towns of Greenville and Temple successfully regionalized their police departments a few years ago, and Conlin said that if regionalization would benefit the town, he’d be all for it.

“I am open to regionalization if it saves the taxpayers money and provides the town with the same level of coverage we currently have,” said Conlin.

But the makeup of the committee has caused some concern both with Chamberlain, who has called the entire process a political exercise to eliminate him, and with Conlin, who felt the original committee, which included two people who are openly opposed to the police chief, according to selectman Ben Cargill.

“There are a couple of people on the committee who absolutely want to see the chief gone,” Cargill said earlier this month. “But that’s not the reason this committee is looking at regionalization.”

Conlin said that committee wasn’t a fair representation of the sentiment in town toward the police. Most people, he said, go to work and come home and don’t think about the police until someone breaks into their home.

But Conlin added that only four people even volunteered for the committee, so it was difficult to get a broader cross-section of the community weighing in.

“I’m not comfortable with bias of any kind,” he said. “I’m hoping people who are pro-police will step up to balance things out and it would be good to have an officer too.”

Conlin said that the board will be accepting names of applicants over the next two weeks or so.

nfoster@newstote.com