At the Jan. 28 Lewisville City Council meeting, members voted to increase the presence of the Lewisville Police Department in Castle Hills by adding patrol services amongst other services.

Under the Public Safety Agreement the city has with Castle Hills, the Lewisville Police Department provides basic services, which means that officers respond to calls for service and do not conduct routine patrols in Castle Hills.

Castle Hills contracts with a third party that provides an off-duty peace officer to patrol the community. However, these off-duty peace officers can only handle breeches of peace and felonies and LPD would have to be called to handle other calls.

Because of this, Castle Hill's general manager Phil Brosseau inquired about the Lewisville Police Department’s ability to begin providing patrol services under the expanded services provision of the Public Safety Agreement.

As staff evaluated his request, they compiled the calls for service data and response time data for the Castle Hills area for the last 365 days to help determine the most effective way to staff additional patrol services.

Based on the data, the police department will provide full police patrol services to the district for eight hours daily: 7-11 a.m. and 4-8 p.m. The selected hours would provide coverage during times when the district experiences the most calls, according to city staff.

The police department would invoice the district for the additional patrol hours at the contracted rate of $112.78. Assuming the department can staff every four-hour shift with an officer, the cost to the districts would be an additional $328,415 annually under the 2018 agreement, which is funded through sales tax received from the Strategic Partnership Agreement.

These hours would be staffed by officers working on an overtime basis and would have no impact on the current patrol services in the city of Lewisville.

In addition, Police Chief Kevin Deaver said he would like to begin utilizing some of the department’s special units including traffic officers, neighborhood resource officers, street crimes officers, gang enforcement officers and narcotics detectives in Castle Hills. He would deploy these resources as they are available and as he feels necessary to address issues and concerns in the district.