Boise chief of staff outlines housing, transit and public-safety priorities; police report major crime down 18%

Courtney Washburn, chief of staff for the City of Boise, briefed the City Council on the mayor’s strategic priorities — housing, transportation, climate, public safety and economic development — and reported progress on multiple fronts.

Washburn said the city’s affordable housing pipeline includes projects completed and under construction: "completed in 2025 is Wilson Station. Denton will be completed in December," and she listed projects scheduled for 2026 through 2028, including New Path 2 (95 supportive homes) and Sherwood (48 supportive homes). She framed homelessness work as cross-agency, aimed at preventing people exiting juvenile services, state hospitals or correctional facilities from entering homelessness.

The update included a series of policing and public-safety metrics and operational changes. "Traffic enforcement is up 36% with almost 27,000 stops conducted between January and September 2025," Washburn said. She also said overall major crime in Boise "is down 18%, and it's been driven by a reduction in burglary theft and motor vehicle theft." The city said calls for service and demands on officers have continued to increase, with 2024 seeing an almost 10% rise and 2025 showing a smaller increase through September.

Boise Police Department leadership described operational changes intended to manage that workload. Police Chief Dennison told council members that "patrol is the backbone of any police department," and department planning includes a patrol staffing floor of 125 officers to reduce overtime and preserve training time. Dennison described a targeted deployment model he said the department is pursuing: "we want 60% of time allocated to 9 1 1 calls for service report writing, 40% of time allocated to on-site activity, traffic enforcement, follow-up, proactive police engagement on problem houses." He said the department has created juvenile detective positions, a rank-corporal role to assist sergeants, and neighborhood contact officers focused on prevention.

On investigative results and data systems, Dennison said certain clearance-rate figures are hard to extract from the current records management system, but he reported homicide clearance at 100% "for the last, I believe, 2 years." He said the department is implementing a new case management capability through the recently budgeted Axon system and will publish broader clearance-rate targets as part of the department’s strategic plan.

Council members asked about underlying drivers for declines in theft and motor-vehicle theft. Sergeant Thoosom’s assignment to the property-crime section and more aggressive follow-up investigations were cited as a primary factor. Council members also discussed sexual-assault reports linked to Boise State University, where the chief said the department sees many cases involving ages 14–21 and is coordinating with the university, victim services and an alcohol-compliance officer to pursue targeted deployments and education.

Transportation and micromobility were also on the agenda. Washburn said the city recently reduced Lime scooter speeds on the Greenbelt and downtown in response to complaints. The city has applied for a Safe Streets and Roads Implementation grant for Fairview and cited work by the traffic-fatality review task force on street-light and sidewalk projects where safety improvements were tied to past incidents.

On economic development, Washburn said the city continues to support Micron’s growth and that staff have responded to 38 requests for information about potential projects in 2025 compared with 33 in 2024; she said about 20% of this year’s inquiries are related to the semiconductor industry. She said transportation and housing availability are constraining factors for employer recruitment and retention, and the mayor’s office is discussing regional solutions including rail and connections to the airport.

Washburn said staff will return with more detail on police, fire and library staffing needs; she told council she plans a work session to present staffing plans and how public-safety metrics and facility planning align.

The presentation prompted multiple follow-up requests from council members for more data on clearance rates, cybercrime trends and the staffing timeline for recently approved detective positions. Washburn said juvenile detective positions are already filled and further hires will occur as academy classes graduate, with some backfilling expected in December and additional hires into early 2026.

Why this matters: the briefing laid out near-term capital and staffing choices that affect public safety, homelessness response and economic development. City leaders said additional work sessions and data will inform upcoming budget and policy decisions.

Courtney Washburn stood for questions and council discussion at the close of the briefing.