City council members react to new community policing report
City council members will get their first chance Monday night to discuss CPD Sergeant Rob Fox’s community policing draft report, which came out as part of the council’s agenda last Friday.
The draft report laid out several recommendations, which are examined at length in this ABC 17 News article from Friday.
Several council members either didn’t want to comment on the report before the meeting, or wanted to wait to share their thoughts during the discussion.
Councilman Mike Trapp reacted favorably to the report before the council meeting Tuesday, and said he agreed with many of the recommendations.
He said that since it’s a draft, changes can still be made.
“I think this process is not yet over,” he said. “We should take the recommendations, we should listen carefully to the feedback in the community, and we should try to meet to the extent that we can what comes back through that feedback process.”
He said there are a few things he would have liked to see that aren’t in there. For instance, he said he wanted to see a greater acknowledgement of the need to do more “outside of the box thinking.”
“In a lot of ways, what we ask of the police department these days is akin to social work,” he said. “I think looking at some additional approaches on that realm.”
The draft report has faced some community criticism from Race Matters, Friends because Fox recommends a property tax increase to pay more officers better wages in order to make community policing viable.
Trapp has long been an advocate for a property tax increase, calling it a stable way to “allow us to add staff and be confident that we’ll be able to keep them employed in the future.”
The council heard a presentation about the report at the end of a meeting that lasted more than seven hours. Third Ward Councilman Karl Skala and Fourth Ward Councilman Ian Thomas suggested putting the report on an agenda for a later council meeting so more residents could comment on it.
Mayor Brian Treece said he wanted to refrain from further comment until the report is reviewed again.
