County highlights public-safety staffing study, police partnerships and accreditation

Unidentified Speaker 1 and Unidentified Speaker 4, county representatives for the County Executive's Office and police respectively, described a comprehensive public-safety staffing study completed with police and fire rescue designed to guide workforce stability and emergency-response staffing.

Unidentified Speaker 4 said the Albemarle County Police Department partnered with AQUILA on an in-house fitness coordinator program and with a neighborhood initiative (referred to in the remarks as Nuance Neighborhood) to work with residents on crime concerns. The speaker described a new program for residents to register exterior home-security cameras with detectives to assist investigations and said officers partnered with the Charlottesville Police Department to host a Safe Worship Workshop attended by more than 80 faith leaders.

The speaker said the department achieved accreditation on Dec. 4. Unidentified Speaker 11, a fire-rescue representative, said Fire Rescue launched Community Connect (more than 800 household registrations reported in the first two months), expanded recruit and paramedic training (largest paramedic class with a 100% pass rate) and secured $500,000 in grant funding for radiological preparedness and flood mitigation.

Remarks did not include the staffing-study methodology, the timing or implementation of any staffing changes, or detailed budget impacts for additional hires; the speakers described these efforts as data-informed next steps.