06-23-1993 Council Agenda - Laserfiche WebLink

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The time has come again for us to look at the possibility to begin another phase in program. Circumstances and work loads of the uniform Patrol Deputies dictate that it is time to add additional uniform personnel to the Law Enforcement effort of our Contract Cities, if we are to keep our current level of service status quo. By talking with the Deputies who work the street and by researching available data, I and the Patrol Staff have determined that it is desirable to add a " power shift " of one squad for sixteen hours of the twenty four hour period. The ideal times to have this squad on the street are from llam to 7pm and 7pm to 3am. Right now the time period of 7pm to 3am demands the most attention. There are occasions during this time period that all of our squads are tied up on a call. Although we currently priorities calls, and delay sending squads to lower priority calls, There are times when we have to pull a Contract City Deputy from one call, and send that Deputy to a higher priority call some where else in the Contract Cities. The problem is, often times, this Deputy must travel a considerable distance from one Contract City to the next in order to get to the call. High priority calls indicate that the Deputy is traveling red light and siren and must get to the call as quickly as possible. The fact that the Deputy is traveling long distances under emergency conditions puts that Deputy at a greater risk than there would be if there was another squad available to take up some of the slack. Sadly, right now, we must still pull our Deputies from calls before they are finished and send them to another simply because there isn't any one else to send. One of my biggest fears is that there is going to come a time when someone is going to call 911 and all of our squads will be tied up on equally high priority calls. Who are we going to send then? We had better start planning for this now, and make the necessary arrangements to ensure that this won't happen. One other thing to consider is the fact that our officers who now work this time period are basically radio driven. What I mean by that is, the officers have no time to do any proactive police work. During the hours of 7pm to 3am, there is very little, positive citizen contact by the officers, community problem solving efforts by the officers, or traffic enforcement conducted by the officers. The addition of another squad during this time period will result in a much better product by our Deputies and also continue the high level of satisfaction of our citizens in their police department. We can solve this problem. As usual, there appears to be more than one way to achieve the solution. One possible solution is to throw more personnel and resources at the problem. If equipment and personnel cost are not an issue, the solution is simple. We hire four more Deputies and buy another equipped squad car. Doing this would allow us to put another squad on the street immediately sixteen hours a day, seven days a week. Page 60