Oakwood City Police Chief Tim Hatch knew he had a job ahead of him to get his new police department certified, but as he proceeded, he learned more things were needed to get his officers up to the level he wanted them to be.
At Monday night’s Oakwood City Council meeting, Hatch relayed nine points to city council members, updates from an initial assessment he presented to them on July 2.
The main highlight, Hatch said after the meeting, was that they were fully staffed, promoting officers and morale was high.
"The biggest thing we've accomplished is putting on the new positions, adding six new positions to the department," said Hatch. "That was a huge move because that was in the middle of the budget, it was not approved before, so the city council agreed to do this midyear, and what makes it so big is it's not just the new positions, it's the cars and all the equipment that goes with that. It's quite a commitment to fund that one objective."
Hatch said with the new equipment, officers will no longer have to supply their own firearm, as they had previously. He also said taser training was recently completed and they were waiting for taser cartridges to come in. "The department here has never had tasers," Hatch said.
And, Hatch said more officers means a need to re-evaluate their fleet of vehicles.
"Oakwood has grown but the department hasn't, so obviously as you put on new people you need the vehicles to go with them," Hatch said. "We've opted to go with Dodge Chargers. They'll be coming hopefully within the next few months. Right now the new positions... that are training, once they complete training, I don't have vehicles for them, and they're going to have to ride continually in a two person unit until we get the cars in."
The new cars will be silver and have a new design as well. All vehicles will receive dash cameras and upgraded GPS monitors that put them on the 911 Computer Aided Dispatch system. Both of those upgrades were paid out of the condemnation fund.
Hatch said these changes were key to stay competitive with other departments that supply equipment as a standard.
According to an assessment Hatch presented in July, new body armor, new uniforms, new tasers and taser training, department issued handguns and GPS tracking for vehicles were the immediate needs and were all paid for by the condemnation fund, which does not impact the city budget.
The full list of points are below:
- Taser Training is now complete, the Tasers are issued, and we are awaiting new cartridges. Tasers for new positions are here, and training of new personnel will be scheduled.
- The new handguns have been issued to most of our personnel, including the newly hired personnel. The handguns that were ordered with the approval of the new positions are scheduled for delivery any day.
- The adjusted court fees are set and in place, and they are being used now.
- The department is completing promotional processes for the positions of Corporal and Sergeant, and testing concludes 10/23/2019. Once promotions are made, there will be adequate supervision on all shifts.
- Corporal Crowder will be assuming the position of State Certification Manager after the promotions are completed, and he will be managing the process involved in attaining State Certification.
- We are working with Enterprise Fleet Management to determine the the best way to move forward with the purchase of the 6 Dodge Chargers for the new positions.
- We have received the first 6 in-car cameras for the vehicles that are on order, and the 2020 budget includes a request for additional cameras.
- Personnel have been identified and hired for the new positions that Council approved in August. At this time, the department is fully staffed.
- Effort are on-going to work with the team from UGA in an effort to move the Police Department to the new facility on the site of the current Public Works Department.
The team from University of Georgia is a capstone project for several engineering students. City Manager Stan Brown said the team was looking at designing the old poultry lab on Oakwood Road to become a new space for the growing police department, along with public works.
"The council has pretty well indicated they do want to relocate police and public works - public works is over there now - but based on the growth that we're experiencing we know that this city hall will not handle the growth, so we're looking at moving police and public works together, so it will sort of be an operation center," said Brown. "So the work is being done and will be the first step toward getting a plan and funding and everything together to make that happen."
Brown said the engineering students met with city staff about two weeks ago and will make another site visit Friday and begin their environmental assessment. Brown said from there, concept, budget, schematics and other plans would be developed before the end of the school year.
In Hatch's assessment, the internal workings of the police department would change as well, starting with a more concise timekeeping method, implementing adjusted court fees, and work on the organizational structure, including rankings, within the department.
Also on the agenda, city council members unanimously agreed to update the language of the stopping, starting and parking portion of the city’s code, as well as unanimously voting to make contact with local legislators regarding proposed home building standards being taken out of the local government’s hands.
"The council just adopted a resolution expressing their support that design standards that happen in cities and counties should be decided at the local level and not something mandated by the state legislature," said Brown.
And, Brown said staff was looking at a recent vaping moratorium and how the city should proceed.
