Winter Park Commission agrees to add new officers

Winter Park is looking to hire two new police officers as part of its budget for the upcoming fiscal year – a response to ongoing crime within the city.

The Winter Park City Commission earmarked a potential funding source during their budget work session on Monday to bring back two of four frozen positions in the police department.

Funding to pay for the two salaries – $85,000 apiece – would come from state tax revenue and revenue from the recently increased electric utility rate, City Manager Randy Knight said.

Public safety takes precedence, said City Commissioner Carolyn Cooper, adding that she continues to get phone calls from residents who don’t feel safe.

“I just want to bring our police force up to a level where we’re clearly visible,” Cooper said. “Quite frankly it’s more than just adding police officers, it’s also about looking at getting the most efficiency from the police officers we have.”

City Commissioners Greg Seidel and Tom McMacken agreed with Cooper, gaining the majority rule and tentatively adding two police officer positons to the upcoming budget.

“I like to think that we as a city are doing everything within reason to have the strongest police force we can have,” Seidel said.

The two new police positions would be in special operations, who specifically deal with traffic crashes. The city had originally frozen the officer positions back in 2008 due to the city’s finances, Assistant City Manager Michelle Neuner told the Observer in July.

“We were going into some tough economic times,” Neuner said. “A lot of cities had that same sort of economic issue. We weren’t alone in that.”

Police Chief Brett Railey told the City Commission that month that the special operations officers are especially helpful since they supplement existing patrol officers.

“Last year we had 1,600 traffic crashes,” Railey said. “With Ultimate I-4 coming up, there are going to be additional crashes. There’s just no doubt about it.”

“Each of those crashes average just over an hour per crash [of an officer’s time]. If [special operations officers] aren’t available to work it, then one of my first responders in the patrol divisions has to handle that crash and is tied up for that period of time.”

But Mayor Steve Leary said he didn’t see the need for additional officers and that the current crime rates aren’t unusual. Funding for police has also climbed by 13.43 percent over the past four years while other departments have held the line, he said.

“I’ve looked at the crime stats,” Leary said. “If your house gets broken into, you feel that it’s a crime wave. If your neighbor’s house gets broken into it’s just unfortunate.”

“I think we’re in great shape. Our police do a phenomenal job, I just don’t see the need for it right now.”

But Winter Park has seen a spike in residential burglaries in just the past few months. Crime statistics from the Winter Park Police Department show there were only six burglaries in the months of April and May combined, then that spiked up to 10 burglaries in June alone, and then 20 in July. The number of burglaries dipped in August back down to 10.

The city’s Civil Service Board has been pushing for the city to unfreeze the four frozen police positions since last October, when they sent a letter to the City Commission requesting the positons be brought back.

“The primary mission of any government is to protect and defend its citizens and the general public,” the letter reads. “Within 20 months the entire WPPD senior management team will be retiring, further impacting the response readiness of the department.”

The City Commission will conduct a first reading on Sept. 14 on the proposed budget before making a final vote during their Sept. 28 meeting.