Lakeway expands public-safety tools, victim services and emergency-management focus on wildfire

City Manager Joseph Molise and Police Chief Glenn Cohen outlined recent and planned public-safety investments at the April 8 State of the City briefing, including expanded victim services, increased automated license-plate reader deployments and an upgrade to dispatch and records software.

Chief Glenn Cohen (present in the audience during the briefing) and Molise said the police department has deployed license-plate readers across the city and will request additional cameras in the next fiscal-year budget; officials said the readers have helped locate people with outstanding warrants and a missing person. Molise told the audience that the department also is implementing a new CAD/RMS system over the summer to modernize dispatch, records and officer workflows.

Molise said the department has doubled the size of its victim services team to two full-time staff and described community policing efforts, badge-pinning ceremonies to introduce new staff at council meetings and recruitment advantages from Lakeway’s crime statistics. He identified three enforcement focus areas for the coming year: collisions, fraud and vehicle burglary, and said the department is studying drone use and bike patrols for Main Street and the forthcoming Square.

On emergency management, Molise described Wahida Yousafzai (emergency management director/coordinator) as the city’s emergency management coordinator and said she also coordinates emergency management across nearby jurisdictions including Bee Cave and the Village of The Hills. Molise reminded the audience that, under state law, the mayor is the director of emergency management but can designate a coordinator; he said the city’s top emergency-management focus this year is wildfire preparedness and that the city has formed a multi-agency task force.

Officials said municipal courts have launched a teen court program to divert juvenile cases and that parks and public works completed several bond-funded projects, including culvert replacements and road rehabilitations. Molise said a recently acquired generator will keep public-works operations running during outages and that traffic-signal and sidewalk projects are in progress.