Baldwin Park police propose two Community Service Officer positions, vehicles and training funding

Baldwin Park Police presented a request to the Stakeholders Oversight Committee on April 8 to fund two full-time Community Service Officer positions and related equipment, including marked midsize pickup trucks, training, radios and in-car and body cameras.

The proposal, explained by the Police Chief during the committee’s new-business presentation, seeks two CSO positions intended primarily to provide visible presence and quality‑of‑life enforcement in city parks, plazas and shopping-center areas while freeing sworn patrol officers to handle emergency calls. The chief said CSOs would take non‑immediate crime reports, perform parking enforcement, assist the homeless outreach/core team and handle some evidence collection; they would be unarmed but equipped with a taser and pepper spray and receive post‑certified arrest training so they can make detentions and some misdemeanor arrests.

The committee’s chair and members pressed staff for details on deployment, training, vehicle choice and budget timing. Committee members asked how often CSOs would be in parks versus doing administrative work, how quickly the positions could be hired and trained, and whether funding would be a one‑year pilot or a permanent addition to the Measure BP‑funded program.

Police described the workforce and training plan in more detail. The chief said the CSO roles existed previously and had been moved to administrative duties; the department now has two vacant CSO positions they wish to return to field service. The department plans to send recruits to a regional training course to obtain arrest authority (described in the presentation as a “32 PC” arrest course offered at the Rio Hondo regional training center), add in‑house training on de‑escalation and defensive tactics, and use virtual‑reality scenario training. A staff member clarified the CSOs would be paired with the existing homeless-core team when appropriate and would not respond to crimes in progress.

Steven (identified in the meeting as a staff speaker on training) said the CSOs "would never be alone. They would need to be paired up with our core officers," adding that training would include arrest procedures, defensive tactics and mental‑health awareness. The Police Chief emphasized the department would recruit locally to create a career pipeline from CSO to sworn officer.

On equipment and cost, the chief said the department was still evaluating whether to lease or purchase vehicles and estimated roughly $35,000 in vehicle costs in the presentation (described as a five‑year lease estimate for three vehicles in early slides), and included training and equipment line items for in‑car cameras, mobile data computers, radios and body cameras. The chief also referenced an estimated training line (reported aloud as roughly $377) and said staff would return with a final purchase vs. lease recommendation and a more detailed budget breakout. Staff asked committee members whether they would consider initial one‑year funding tied to subsequent presentations and reporting; several committee members favored approval on a one‑ to two‑year basis with mandatory year‑end reporting on deployment and outcomes.

Committee discussion covered staffing context: the chief said several sworn positions remain frozen and the department recently hired seven new officers (two laterals and five academy graduates), so CSOs were proposed as a force multiplier rather than replacement for sworn staffing. Committee members requested a clear public explanation of why pickup trucks were requested rather than cars; staff and the chief said trucks are used for encampment cleanup, hauling bulky items and other work that would otherwise require public works support. Committee members asked staff to separate the CSO personnel and equipment request from the core‑team vehicle request so residents could see which funds paid for which program.

No final funding vote was taken at the April 8 meeting. Staff committed to revising the transmittal with a purchase vs. lease analysis, breaking out personnel and vehicle requests, and returning with recommended funding language timed to the city’s FY 2026 budget hearings in June.