A Kent County Sheriff's Office representative briefed Cascade Charter Township officials on public-safety trends tied to hotel activity and patrol practices, saying hotel-related incidents make up a modest share of overall calls but are concentrated at a few locations.

The presenter said that across a two-year window (2022124) calls at the township's 16 hotels totaled just under 1,600, while total calls in Cascade were just over 14,000, meaning hotels accounted for roughly 11 percent of call volume; removing traffic stops reduced the hotel share to about 10 percent. "Calls at the hotels contributed to 11% of our call volume overall," the presenter said, noting proactive enforcement explains part of the higher counts at specific properties.

Why it matters: the data frames recent local policy and enforcement decisions, including a township hotel ordinance adopted last year. The sheriff's office told trustees it saw a small decline in total hotel incidents after adoption (reported as 861 before the ordinance and 836 in the year after, a roughly 3 percent drop) but cautioned the change may also reflect variations in directed patrol activity and reporting categories.

The presenter highlighted two hotels by name as producing roughly half of hotel-related calls and said many of those contacts were traffic stops or proactive contacts in parking lots rather than on-room criminal investigations. On the types of calls, the sheriff's office said the most common were general assistance requests (evictions from rooms, disorderly individuals), followed by traffic stops and suspicious situations; domestics and civil disputes also appeared in the top categories.

On retail and property crime, business owners described recent burglaries that the sheriff's office linked to masked suspects using stolen vehicles and a pattern of similar thefts across Kent County. The presenter said masked suspects and the use of gloves have limited fingerprint evidence, and that stolen vehicles are often found abandoned in other cities, which complicates investigations.

The sheriff's office invited trustees and business owners to use the county's public dashboards and offered to run targeted reports for specific businesses or blocks. The presenter also offered follow-up analysis about clearance rates, reporting a roughly 40 percent clearance rate for crimes in Cascade Township over the cited year and noting the detective bureau was actively pursuing cases.

Next steps: the sheriff's office encouraged businesses to report incidents promptly and to work with deputies on non-technical interventions (lighting upgrades, glass replacement). The office offered to provide tailored data and to continue collaboration with the township on directed patrols.