Wymore Committee Looks At Ways To Keep City Police Department

By Gordon HopkinsEarlier this year, the City of Wymore created a Police Department Advisory Committee. The primary focus of the committee would be to determine what needs to be done to keep the police department in place, or if that is even possible. Bryan Davidson, who was Wymore’s Chief of Police for 18 years, serves on the committee. He gave a report to the Wymore City Council at a meeting on Wednesday, June 21, 2023. As of that meeting, the committee had only met fours times. One major takeaway from that report is the committee wishes the city to retain the police department if at all possible.“By the third meeting, we pretty much came to the conclusion that there’s three options for Wymore: continue with our police department, contract with the sheriff’s department or do nothing and doing nothing is out the window,” Davidson told the committee. “We’d said the best option for the City of Wymore is to continue with the Wymore Police Department.”The alternative is to eliminate the police department and contract with the Gage County Sheriff’s Office to provide law enforcement. A state statute indicates that a class two city must provide a police department or have a contract with local law enforcement to provide law enforcement services.Although the committee’s preference is to keep the police department, they have explored the other option. Davidson said they had received a couple of proposals from the Gage County Sheriff’s office.Davidson said, “The city would pay $250,000. We would give them all our stuff (equipment and vehicles). They would use our police station. They would not enforce any ordinances. And in return, they would patrol the town like they do any other towns in the county. So basically, we get the same amount of coverage as we do now. But we pay them a quarter of a million dollars.”Davidson said, “And then the next day, a second proposal came, and it was a nine or 10 page proposal and pretty detailed. But we’d pay then $212,000 a year, give them all our stuff. They would enforce some of our ordinances. They encouraged us to hire an ordnance officer. We’d have to buy them a brand new patrol car and new equipment every three years. And in return, they would give us 12 hours of coverage a day.” However, Davidson noted the Gage County Sheriff’s Office is suffering from its own staffing shortages, “They have to fill all those positions, and then hire at least two more on top of that, to be able to cover that contract. So we are a few years down the road of them being able to fulfill that contract.”Law enforcement agencies across the country are short staffed. Earlier this year, the WPD had to temporarily cease law enforcement activities until the department is back to a sufficient staff, the Gage County Sheriff’s Office agreed to handle all calls for violations of state law as well as calls about dangerous dogs.Right now, the committee’s primary focus is to hire a new police chief. Davidson said they have received some interest and he has met with some candidates.

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