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GRAND RAPIDS CITY
Chief Harry Dolan and representatives of the Strategic Planning Support Team were invited to a working lunch with the Grand Rapids City Commission on August 17, to allow the commissioners a specific opportunity for input into the process. The following are notes from that meeting: Mayor Logie A previous study had looked at providing a downtown police facility with 127,000 square feet. But the police no longer police that way - from a hub downtown with spokes that radiate into the community. Instead looking at community-based. He wants to see a plan for the new police facilities. He wants to be ahead of the county in developing a building plan that would vacate the facility downtown to allow for expansion of the convention center. Wants to be ahead of the Hall of Justice opening. Commissioner Heartwell Would the police substations include law enforcement with cruisers? Would they also have a detective unit for everything but major cases? An NPU presence? An Internal Affairs Officer? Commissioner Samuelson Told a story about the woman who had been a neighborhood resident for 25 years. Out mowing her lawn and a kid went into her house and took money from her purse. The neighbors knew who the kid was. She stopped an officer who then said that he couldn’t do anything for her. Said it had to go to detectives for anything to be done. Detectives couldn’t do anything. Sends a message that regular police officers cannot do anything for them. Commissioner Schmitt Importance of quality of life issues. Trust is essential. Law-abiding citizens need to know that they have someone to talk to about their problems. Co-locating a facility with Youth Commonwealth makes sense. Officers are important to youth. Chief Harry Dolan The partnership between the police and the Neighborhood Associations is a key building block. Mayor Logie Synergy is the key. Our Senior Volunteers have extended the reach of the sworn officers. Commissioner Rabaut When you think of the Creston area, it is clear that facilities should reflect the need of the local area. People want the same police officer. They want that officer to know them. And they want their input on the issues to be received with credibility. This is nothing new. The police facility should be a friendly place where people want to go. Quality of life issues are huge. Need to think about working with Housing, Zoning, and the City Commission. City Manager Kurt Kimball We need teams that include city services that are also not incident-driven. Time for a new problem-solving mode. We should look at facilities that would allow people to do everything from registering to vote to picking up their garbage tags. Chief Dolan At one neighborhood meeting, people talked about how they didn’t have any banking services and they would like to see banking included in those facilities. Commissioner Jendresiak Design something that reflects the needs of the individual neighborhoods. People are willing to be a part of this. We need to look at a precinct in each sector of the city with offices in specific target areas. Commissioner Bowen Maybe we could move into elementary schools. They are the anchors in our neighborhoods. (Grand Rapids has 52 elementary schools.) Commissioner Samuelson In her experience, the school officer did not do much more than sit in the teachers’ lounge. Mayor Logie We are the only major metropolitan area in the state with exponential growth. The challenge is that none of us want more taxes. Yet when asked, people want more services. The solution is for city agencies to work together. There is a limit to how much you can achieve by trying to make people work harder or longer. We need to work smarter. And we need to share resources and work cooperatively. |
