Lt. Robbie Seal weighs in on proposed FRPD Community Resource Officer budget cut

Lt. Robbie Seal describes his duties as the CRO with Roger Bianchini in the Royal Examiner studio. Photo and video by Mark Williams, Royal Examiner.

Having noticed a part-time salary cut in the proposed the Fiscal Year 2021 Front Royal Police Department budget, Royal Examiner inquired as to what position was being proposed for elimination.

FRPD Chief Kahle Magalis confirmed that the position noted as Line Item 41003 on page 35 of the proposed FY 2021 Town Budget, page two of the “Department of Public Safety” section was FRPD’s Community Resource Officer (CRO). It is a position recently vacated when Robbie Seal transferred to the Warren County Sheriff’s Office to take on the same duties for newly-elected Sheriff Mark Butler on January 1.

While acknowledging the proposed cut was not suggested departmentally, Chief Magalis declined to get into a discussion of the department’s proposed budget this early in the FY 2021 budget cycle.

So, we reached out to now WCSO Lt. Robbie Seal for a description of his duties as the CRO, first for five years with FRPD and now in his second month at the sheriff’s office. Seal consented to a video interview to describe his past and present work as a liaison officer between law enforcement and the communities in which they operate.

He explained his decision to leave FRPD as simply accepting a challenge presented to him by Sheriff Butler to bring the Community Resource Officer function to a physically more far-ranging community.

In this Royal Examiner video interview, hear Seal’s enthusiasm for his Community Resource Officer’s jobs, both past, and present, as well as his belief that eliminating the position from the town police department that brought it to this community five years ago is a bad idea: