news-record.com

Now that the debate over the swim center has settled down, Greensboro City Council plans to turn its attention in 2010 to the police department.

The City Council at its December retreat called public safety its top issue, so it's likely that Chief Tim Bellamy's suggestion of adding a fifth patrol district and 300 employees over the next five years will get a good going-over. While city leaders are at it, they should look beyond the department's immediate needs and figure out how to help it keep pace with the city's growth far beyond Bellamy's five-year plan.

The city will spend about $63 million next year to operate a police force of 768 full-time employees. That number includes patrol officers, detectives and crime scene investigators as well as their secretaries and bosses.

The department needed an average of 7 minutes and 20 seconds to respond to emergency calls. Bellamy's goal is 6 minutes. Officers needed an average of 11 minutes and 16 seconds to respond to non-emergency calls. The department's goal is 10 minutes. Are these numbers acceptable? That's something that the City Council and police leaders will have to decide.

Another topic worth discussing is the proposed fifth patrol district. The department now splits the city into four patrol districts, each with its own assigned officers. Bellamy believes that these zones have gotten too big. Adding a fifth could help officers respond to calls more quickly.

There's cost involved, of course. To fully staff a fifth patrol district, a 2007 study says the department would need about 90 new employees, which would increase the annual police payroll by $6.5 million. Building a police substation in that new patrol district could cost about $18.5 million. Again, city and police leaders must weigh these costs against the city's needs and available money.

While they're at it, city and police leaders should plan for the future growth of the department and not continue to play catch-up as they often do now.

Bellamy says the department needs 300 more employees over the next five years to account for population growth and annexation. More houses, the chief explains, means more 911 calls to take, more people to deal with and more crime scenes and traffic crashes to investigate.

Will that be enough new police employees? Maybe, and that should be the topic of future planning. Greensboro will continue to grow, and the police department must grow along with it. The city's latest major annexation, The Cardinal in 2008, added 7 square miles and about 10,000 people to Greensboro. More such additions are likely as developments keep popping up along the city's borders.

It might be tempting to do some long-range planning after Bellamy's replacement comes on board within the next year or so. But the city's growth won't wait, and neither should a plan to keep the police department responsive to a growing city's needs over the short and long term.