06-02-2008, 12:25 AM
BPD Should Be Strengthened, Not Abolished
In city government circles, the question of contracting for law enforcement services with the Polk County Sheriff's Office is the 500-pound gorilla that cannot be ignored.
We are on record in favor of keeping the Bartow Police Dept. in place as a municipal agency . . . keeping it in place, but not keeping it unchanged.
We continue to hear arguments both for and against contracting with the PCSO; there are legitimate points on both sides.
The primary argument made in favor of contracting is Sheriff Grady Judd's assertion that he could save city government a lot of money through economies of scale and reduction of supervisory staff.
Another major argument is that the larger staff of the PCSO would equate to better law enforcement in Bartow. It would make available specialties ranging from the agricultural unit to experienced homicide investigators.
The strongest argument in favor of keeping the BPD as a municipal agency, in our opinion, is community pride. It's not something you can put a price tag on, but it's a legitimate consideration.
Another major consideration is local control. If the citizens of Bartow, through their city commissioners, decide that noise abatement should be a major priority, it becomes the task of the city manager and the police chief to make it happen. With the sheriff - any sheriff - in charge, the priorities would be set by him and his subordinates.
There is no question that in law enforcement, bigger certainly can be cheaper; whether bigger automatically is better is another issue.
Dispatch and record-keeping functions arguably could become less expensive through economies of scale.
But we hope it will be many, many years before the BPD needs a dedicated homicide team. Judd often says that he is sheriff of all of Polk County, not just of the unincorporated area. He is, of course, correct.
And city residents pay county taxes to support his agency.
It is certainly appropriate for the PCSO to offer assistance in Bartow's rare who-dun-it homicides. (Most homicides are crimes of passion, and are solved within a few hours.)
In the past, the BPD has had specialty units ranging from a bicycle patrol to a plainclothes crime suppression unit. Some such units went away when federal funding ended; others were the victims of budget cuts.
We would like to see the most important of them restored.
For more than a year, the BPD has been operating under the supervision of a PCSO captain who is on loan to the city. It is a textbook example of city-county cooperation.
We propose that city officials work with the PCSO to determine how Judd would make Bartow law enforcement both better and more economical, and to adopt his best ideas.
If, as Judd has suggested, the BPD has more supervisors than the PCSO would assign, then reorganization may be in order. That doesn't equate to firing people; it means putting the best qualified people in the most important areas of police work.
City Mgr. George Long brings a new perspective to city government. He is in the enviable position of being the new guy on the block, not locked in to “the way we've always done it.” He has achieved admirable credibility with city employees.
He has a window of opportunity to make the BPD into the more effective, more efficient organization that Judd envisions, while retaining the department as a municipal agency in which Bartowans justifiably take much pride.
It wouldn't be easy - “easy” is not in a city manager's job description - but it would a great achievement on behalf of the citizens of Bartow and the members of their police department.
In city government circles, the question of contracting for law enforcement services with the Polk County Sheriff's Office is the 500-pound gorilla that cannot be ignored.
We are on record in favor of keeping the Bartow Police Dept. in place as a municipal agency . . . keeping it in place, but not keeping it unchanged.
We continue to hear arguments both for and against contracting with the PCSO; there are legitimate points on both sides.
The primary argument made in favor of contracting is Sheriff Grady Judd's assertion that he could save city government a lot of money through economies of scale and reduction of supervisory staff.
Another major argument is that the larger staff of the PCSO would equate to better law enforcement in Bartow. It would make available specialties ranging from the agricultural unit to experienced homicide investigators.
The strongest argument in favor of keeping the BPD as a municipal agency, in our opinion, is community pride. It's not something you can put a price tag on, but it's a legitimate consideration.
Another major consideration is local control. If the citizens of Bartow, through their city commissioners, decide that noise abatement should be a major priority, it becomes the task of the city manager and the police chief to make it happen. With the sheriff - any sheriff - in charge, the priorities would be set by him and his subordinates.
There is no question that in law enforcement, bigger certainly can be cheaper; whether bigger automatically is better is another issue.
Dispatch and record-keeping functions arguably could become less expensive through economies of scale.
But we hope it will be many, many years before the BPD needs a dedicated homicide team. Judd often says that he is sheriff of all of Polk County, not just of the unincorporated area. He is, of course, correct.
And city residents pay county taxes to support his agency.
It is certainly appropriate for the PCSO to offer assistance in Bartow's rare who-dun-it homicides. (Most homicides are crimes of passion, and are solved within a few hours.)
In the past, the BPD has had specialty units ranging from a bicycle patrol to a plainclothes crime suppression unit. Some such units went away when federal funding ended; others were the victims of budget cuts.
We would like to see the most important of them restored.
For more than a year, the BPD has been operating under the supervision of a PCSO captain who is on loan to the city. It is a textbook example of city-county cooperation.
We propose that city officials work with the PCSO to determine how Judd would make Bartow law enforcement both better and more economical, and to adopt his best ideas.
If, as Judd has suggested, the BPD has more supervisors than the PCSO would assign, then reorganization may be in order. That doesn't equate to firing people; it means putting the best qualified people in the most important areas of police work.
City Mgr. George Long brings a new perspective to city government. He is in the enviable position of being the new guy on the block, not locked in to “the way we've always done it.” He has achieved admirable credibility with city employees.
He has a window of opportunity to make the BPD into the more effective, more efficient organization that Judd envisions, while retaining the department as a municipal agency in which Bartowans justifiably take much pride.
It wouldn't be easy - “easy” is not in a city manager's job description - but it would a great achievement on behalf of the citizens of Bartow and the members of their police department.