Get Full Government Meeting Transcripts, Videos, & Alerts Forever!
Get email alerts on the Public Safety Staffing topic
No spam. Unsubscribe anytime.
Public comments and council split over taxes and police staffing; officers describe overtime, low coverage
Summary
Residents and officers urged the council to add police officers to reduce overtime and improve response times; other residents urged restraint on tax increases. Council members called for more study and a phased hiring approach.
Residents, police family members and council members argued over whether to raise local taxes to add police officers after city staff described growing overtime and single-officer overnight shifts.
At the council meeting, City Manager Josh described patrol staffing shortfalls, saying officers “are just responding to the fires metaphorically and and physically” and that overtime has “been blowing up our overtime line item.” He told the council the city faces a sustained staffing shortage, with field-training rotations and academy attendance further reducing street coverage.
Several members of the public spoke in support of adding officers. Missy Mekel, who identified herself as the wife of a sergeant and SRO, said, “It is a huge problem … That is a huge problem that a lot of you probably aren't even aware about,” and warned that response lag times could endanger residents. The police chief described frequent use of overtime, cross‑assignment of supervisors to patrol duties, and the department’s reliance on fire personnel to fill gaps. The chief said adding four officers would place “one officer on each shift” and help coverage but would not completely eliminate overtime.
Other residents objected to raising taxes. Shelby Smith criticized the way the mill levy was presented and said, “You've raised our taxes every single year,” citing a concern she characterized as a roughly 40% increase in city property tax levies over several years. David Smith, a retiree, described rising household costs tied to property valuations and insurance.
On the dais, councilmembers expressed the trade-offs plainly: several said they did not want to raise taxes but worried about the safety implications of underresourced shifts. Councilmembers discussed phased hiring (one or two officers per year) as an alternative to an immediate four-officer increase. The council ultimately approved publishing a budget exceeding the revenue-neutral rate to allow consideration of hiring and then tabled final budget adoption to permit additional work-session review.
The transcript shows substantive public-safety testimony during the public-hearing portion of the meeting and sustained council discussion about hiring pace, overtime reduction and budget trade-offs.
