A Few Minutes with the Mayor – November 2023

On October 3, 2023, City Council voted to enter into an Intergovernmental Agreement with the Jackson County Sheriff’s Department and directed staff to come up with a timeline to rebuild our police department staff. The purpose of the agreement is to provide police services to the City of Jacksonville for the night and weekend shifts. This change has been a long time coming, due to many factors. Today’s policing issues are far different than that of career police officers ten years ago, much less twenty years ago. Most policing everywhere is. There is a different mindset in expectations on both sides in a fair number of professions, including Nursing, Police Personnel, Fire Personnel, Teachers, and Retailers. The environment in all these professions can be difficult and challenging and there is a tremendous amount of competition in hiring in these career paths. Even the most populated cities in Jackson County have recently had issues keeping critical professions staffed.

Funding is always a huge issue. As we are such a small community, we cannot offer the wages, benefits, and hours a larger city can. We cannot tweak our city budget to pay certain departments higher salaries outside of our union negotiations. Some budget line items are funded through various grants, urban renewal funds, and specific donations that cannot be used for other than their dedicated purposes. Grants for permanent positions and salaries are unheard of. So, what can we do to keep Jacksonville safe and covered all hours of the days and weeks? I would like to address this issue right here and put to rest the usual rumor mills that can accompany change.

At the City Council Work Session of September 19, 2023, Council studied a draft of this Intergovernmental Agreement with the Jackson County Sheriff’s Department to cover the City of Jacksonville during night and weekend shifts. Chief of Police, David Towe gave us an in-depth review of the history of the Jacksonville Police Department and events that led up to the hiring crisis we are experiencing today. One of the causes of having a reduced force was the retirement of several of our long-term officers, all in a relatively short period of time. After study and discussion, the best solution your City Council and City Staff could see is entering into a hybrid formula for staffing with the Sheriff’s Department. City Council has been frustrated by not being able to find competent Police Officers to hire, but adamantly against dissolving our Police Department. Having our own Fire Department and Police Department have long been a point of pride in being a citizen in Jacksonville. It’s a reason folks move here, and a tradition in governing our city.

What does this agreement actually mean and how will it work? We have several options under study, depending on how quickly we can hire replacement police officers. We were very fortunate to persuade former employee Sergeant Matt Hannum to return to duty, in Jacksonville, in October. Sergeant Hannum will be working closely with Chief Towe, in anticipation of moving up to the position of Police Chief when Chief Towe retires. Newly-hired Officer Jessica Woodward will start work around December 1 of this year. Jacksonville’s ideal number of police officers is five and a half to six. With the addition of our two new officers, we are at three and a half officers presently, including Chief Towe and Officer Alex Oh. Bolstering our police department temporarily with two officers from the Sheriff’s department will bring us up to five and a half officers. The addition of the two officers will take some of the burden off Jacksonville while we further develop a strategy and timeline for rebuilding our Police staff.

In the meantime, the Police Department offices will be staffed as usual, with our new Police Clerk, Tracy Peters. Tracy will be in the office Monday through Friday, during the hours of 10:00am to 3:00pm. During the daytime hours, you will continue to see Tracy and our Jacksonville Police Officers. During some night and weekend shifts you will see Sheriff’s Department Deputies. These Deputies will be in Sheriff Department vehicles and will be in their Sheriff’s uniforms. They will have a presence in our Police Department office, the same as our Jacksonville Police Officers.

The structure of the agreement is beneficial to both parties. Both Jacksonville and the county have no-fault clauses for termination of the agreement, in the event we rebuild our staffing before the expiration of the three-year agreement. This is a huge undertaking for both parties. A one-year agreement would not be worth the time and effort for what is involved. The Sheriff’s Department cannot hire and maintain police staff that might only be necessary for one year. Two years probably would not be enough. A three-year agreement is fair to everyone and a sixty-day notice of termination at any point gives both parties time to prepare for closing the agreement. Rebuilding police staff will take some time. The timeline for an officer hitting the ground varies with the type of new hire. A new officer must go through a vetting process, including background checks, training, and attending the police academy. A lateral-hire officer’s timeline is considerably shorter as they have undergone most of the entire process and training time already. Please say hello to the new faces you will see working to help keep order in Jacksonville.

We have already begun work with a timeline to rebuild the number of our Police Officers. I look forward to Jacksonville experiencing the efforts Chief David Towe, City Administrator Jeff Alvis, and Sheriff Nate Sickler put into this effort. They, and our City Council, have put many hours of study into bringing our Police Department staffing back up to the necessary number of personnel needed to protect us. Thank you all. Thanks also to all of you who took the time to attend both the Work Session and the City Council meetings, when this issue was discussed. Your comments were helpful and supportive. I’ll be back in December, when we begin to enjoy Jacksonville’s Victorian Holiday Celebrations. The tree lighting ceremony and the parade are shaping up to be spectacular!