Panel discusses staff additions to police department

Carol Walker/Alachua County Today

L-R: ACSO Director of Operations Major Mike Fellows, ACSO Chief Deputy Col. David Huckstep, City of Alachua Police Chief Joel DeCoursey, Jr., High Springs City Manager Ed Booth and High Springs Vice-Mayor Sue Weller.

 

HIGH SPRINGS – A larger than usual audience was on hand at the High Springs City Commission March 20 workshop to discuss changes to the High Springs Police Department (HSPD). Expecting the larger crowd, the city shifted the meeting location from City Hall to the High Springs Civic Center.

Alachua County Sheriff's Office (ACSO) representatives Col. David Huckstep and Director of Operations Maj. Mike Fellows along with City of Alachua Police Chief Joel DeCoursey, Jr., formed a panel to review, comment and answer questions related to City Manager Ed Booth’s plan to add two positions to the HSPD...an investigator and a lieutenant.

Booth originally laid out his plan at a March 6 workshop. At that time, he presented a chart showing the current HSPD staff structure and also a second chart showing the proposed structure with the two new positions added.

An investigator, said Booth earlier, would be able to do follow up when a crime occurs, leaving the street officer free to handle other calls. The department formerly had an investigator, but the position had never been filled after it was vacated according to the city.

The second proposed position was the addition of a lieutenant to provide additional leadership and take over some of the duties currently handled by the police chief. Some of those duties may include acting as the public information officer, providing staff management, monitoring social media and helping to reduce cyber crime.

All three members of the panel stressed that the commissioners should first ask themselves what amount of service they wanted to provide their citizens and then decide how those services could best be provided. They explained how those two positions worked at ACSO and in the Alachua Police Department and suggested that if the city could afford it, the addition of the two positions would provide more services to the citizens.

Col. Huckstep explained that if the city wanted to keep one officer on duty 24/7, it would require five officers. One sergeant would oversee five to nine officers, which would comprise a squad. For every four to five squads, you would have a lieutenant, he said.

While Mayor Byran Williams attempted to keep questions from audience members on topic, he often had to ask the audience to be quiet and polite. He also struggled with some members of the audience, many of whom preferred to talk about the police chief’s position rather than ask the panel of officers questions regarding the proposed staffing changes.

After Williams suggested that if there were no further questions for the officers, they should be let go, some audience members asked the officers a series of questions in an attempt to involve them in disputes they felt they had with the city and/or city manager.

The officers had to defend themselves several times on the issue of how the city could afford the two new positions, which the mayor reminded audience members was not the topic for the officers panel.

The “if it isn't broken, why fix it” argument came up again. Once again the mayor had to reiterate that the issue was not the workshop topic and not appropriate for this panel, which was to address how these positions function in their specific organizations, something the officers had already discussed.

Some speakers tried to turn the conversation topic toward the issue of the former police chief’s firing, something city officials have said several times they are not free to discuss. Although former police chief Steve Holley was in the audience, he did not address the commission or the panel.

Some commissioners said they would support at least one, if not both, of the suggested positions if funding was available during the budget process.

#     #     #

email cwalker@

alachuatoday.com