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Council discusses bicycle patrols, volunteers and visible community policing
Summary
Councilors and the chief discussed bike patrols (the "bumblebee" shirts), volunteer UTVs and neighborhood outreach as ways to increase visibility and citizen contact while preserving response capability.
Council members urged a return to high-visibility community policing and asked how those activities fit into the department's reporting.
Chief Travis Ruby said bicycle and foot patrols are still used and that certain deputies in the special enforcement team regularly operate bikes. "When a deputy is on a bicycle, people come up and talk to us," Ruby said, describing the approach as more approachable than vehicle patrol. He cautioned that officers on bikes must stay within a quick radius of a vehicle so they can respond to emergencies quickly.
Council discussion emphasized the public-engagement benefits—baseball-card-style photo cards with officers and bike patrols at parks—and asked whether those minutes can be counted in productivity measures. Jenna Atkinson replied that AVL and neighborhood dashboards can help document time-in-area but that building those products will take time.
Why it matters: Community policing affects public perception of safety and is part of council deliberations about where to prioritize staffing and overtime. Council members asked the sheriff's analytics team to provide neighborhood-level data and for the police to consider more visible patrols during warm months.
The council did not take formal action; staff agreed to follow up with presentation materials and neighborhood dashboard links.
