Grapevine is replacing vehicles for its fire and police departments. Fire Chief Darrell Brown said the vehicle replacement program allows the departments to get in line for new apparatuses, which are taking nearly two years to be delivered because of ongoing supply chain issues.
Colleyville started 2022 with a hostage situation at the Congregation Beth Israel synagogue and ended the year looking to increase school safety through more school resource officers, or SROs. The new SROs will allow each Colleyville school to have its own designated officer to support the campus.
Southlake is also increasing its SRO force while replacing several pieces of equipment.
Beyond these local plans, state-wide initiatives for increasing school safety are also in play. On Oct. 27, the Texas Legislative Budget Board announced $874.6 million will be used to improve public safety with nearly half of that going toward school security.
Colleyville police officers building relationships
For Colleyville Police Department Chief Michael C. Miller, there are three goals for the department in 2023: recruiting, retention and building relationships.
“Looking forward to 2023 brings excitement for us, as a department, to bring in new faces and ideas ... as we continue to improve our officers’ quality of employment ... and continue building relationships in our community through positive interactions,” Miller said.
Sgt. Dara Nelson said the city’s officers are encouraged to build relationships with residents.
That comes in part from the hostage incident at the Congregation Beth Israel synagogue Jan. 15, 2022, which Nelson said set the tone for the year for some department members.
“[Our goal is] continuing the relationship building that we always have and continuing the high level of service that we’re known for,” she said.
The department faced hiring and recruiting challenges in 2022. Nelson said recruiting has been done at local career fairs and at Texas and out-of-state universities.
“We’re looking at every possibility that we have to recruit,” she said.
Nelson said there are a lot of changes coming for the department, including filling open positions and adding six SROs. The funding for SROs comes from the Colleyville Crime Control and Prevention District, which is funded by $0.005 of city sales tax revenue.
“Our City Council made it their top priority to increase school safety [by] getting an officer in every single school,” Nelson said.
The new SROs will bring the department’s total to nine, and officers will be assigned to all schools within Colleyville’s city limits.
“We’re still doing really good things and making the impact that we need to,” Nelson said.
New vehicles, recruitment planned for Grapevine’s fire and police departments
Recruitment and retention are two goals for Grapevine’s public safety departments.
Grapevine Fire Department Chief Darrell Brown said hiring and retaining employees was one of the department’s biggest challenges in 2022. Brown joined the department in 2014 and said since 2018, the department has had three to four job openings a year, which he called “unprecedented.” Brown said there are several reasons for this, including difficulty attracting applicants to the job and Grapevine not having its own training programs.
“The staffing for fire departments across America is more difficult than it ever has been,” Brown said. “We’re not immune to that here in Grapevine.”
As of early December, the fire department had 92 people in operation with a minimum of 26 staffed on every day across the city’s five fire stations. Brown said the goal is to have 96 staff members with 32 on each shift.
Police Chief Mike Hamlin said the department is looking to “cultivate” a team committed to physical and mental health. This will help Grapevine’s residents, businesses and visitors, he said. The Grapevine Police Department has 97 officers.
“As we look forward to 2023, I believe we will see even more focus on wellness and the impact on community safety,” Hamlin said.
Another issue facing the departments is acquiring new vehicles. Brown said getting vehicles in a timely manner has been difficult due to the supply chain issues automobile manufacturers are facing.
During a Dec. 6 meeting, Grapevine City Council issued about $6 million in certificates of obligation, or debt, to pay for city vehicles. As part of the debt program, the 2022-23 vehicle replacement program will replace vehicles at the end of their useful lives with comparable replacements.
Grapevine Chief Financial Officer Greg Jordan said the city needed to order vehicles as soon as possible because of the delayed delivery times. Previously, it would take about 10-11 months to receive new vehicles, but Brown said it takes about 24 months for ambulances and 28-30 months for ladder trucks.
The police department will also receive seven new pursuit and patrol vehicles as part of the program.
“It’s our goal to continue to serve our community as best we can,” Brown said. “We exist to care for the families and visitors of this community.”
Southlake’s public safety departments working to use technology, new training
The Southlake Fire Department is focusing on recruitment efforts for employees and implementing new technology in 2023, while the police department is training for active shooters and working to equip its schools with school resource officers.
Fire Chief Mike Starr said recruiting and retaining personnel is an “industry-wide concern.” He said fire departments across the country are increasing pay and benefits to attract employees.
“In Southlake, we strive to hire qualified personnel; we want the best of the best,” Starr said.
An achievement for the fire department in 2022 was its planning for emergencies and technology improvements, according to Starr. This includes the Emergency Operations Plan, which is a communications plan among the city, media and public in the event of an emergency. For technology, the department implemented a new Computer Aided Dispatch. Starr said this is a collaboration with Keller, Westlake and Colleyville to prioritize and record incident calls and identify the location of responders in the field.
“The implementation of the new CAD system enhances public safety response times, capabilities and overall safety of not only first responders, but the community,” he said.
To Southlake Police Department Chief James Brandon, the expansion of the SRO program was one of the department’s highlights in 2022. Through Mayor John Huffman’s School Safety Task Force, three additional SRO positions were added along with an additional police captain to oversee the division of 17 officers.
“This is a significant step in the continuation of the partnership between the city of Southlake and Carroll ISD to keep our children safe,” he said.
The department also prepared and trained for responding to an active-shooter event. Brandon said all Southlake police officers completed a reality-based active-shooter training within a CISD school. He said the department has worked with six churches, 22 businesses and a total of 839 attendees during Civilian Response to Active Shooter Event training.
“The most important goal of the [police department] is the safety of our citizens and visitors,” Brandon said. “We accomplish this by hiring the best officers that we can find [and] providing them with the best equipment and training possible.”
Approved in a Nov. 1 Southlake City Council meeting, the radio communication replacement program will provide upgrades to the police and fire departments’ communication units.
