GALESBURG, Mich. — The city of Galesburg could soon be getting its own police department. Initially, the city approved the decision in February. Now, the city says it needs to find a chief who's up for the task.
Right now, the Kalamazoo County Sheriff's Office patrols Galesburg as part of a 40-hour per week contract.
City Manager, Sarah Joshi, says coverage could go up to 60 hours a week once the city establishes its own department.
The yearly $125,000 contract with the sheriff's office will come to an end on June 30.
"We need to let them know in March if we plan to renew or not, and so these decisions are very timely and being made right now just because of that schedule," Joshi told FOX 17 Thursday.
The city has already extended an offer to Jeffrey Crouse, to be the new police chief. Joshi said negotiations for the new chief may start as early as Friday.
"This new police chief would be brought on as soon as possible and work concurrently with the sheriff's department and our own department would take over fully on July 1 of this year," she said.
Galesburg traditionally had its own department, but when citizens expressed they were unhappy with the coverage four years ago, the city got rid of it.
Now, citizens have said the current contract is not enough coverage, which is why Galesburg is making the change.
"We ran some numbers and thought that we can possibly provide about 60 hours of coverage for about the same amount of money as long as we use our ARPA funds for startup costs," Joshi said.
As a separate issue, city council is considering alternate means of funding public safety. Some community members have expressed concern about their taxes increasing and petitioned for a ballot initiative.
"Council agreed, if there's this much public sentiment, they'd rather go ahead and handle it as a millage issue on the ballot versus the special assessment district that they were proposing," she said.
The city has about $113,000 left in ARPA funds. Joshi said that money will help cover things like weapons, uniforms, radios and police cars.
