Wymore Considers Using SRO To Provide Law Enforcement

By Gordon HopkinsA proposal to use a School Resources Officer (SRO) to provide law enforcement for the City of Wymore was met with mixed reactions at a recent city council meeting.The City of Wymore continues to struggle with finding a way to provide law enforcement and frustrations were evident at the latest meeting of the Wymore City Council on Wednesday, August 20, 2025.The city has been without a police department since June of 2024, when Wymore Police Chief Bobby Martinez submitted his resignation just 10 months after he started on the job. Chief Martinez was the city’s only law enforcement officer, although he had been attempting to hire more before his departure.Wymore City Councilperson Neil VanBoening, who also serves on the Police Department Advisory Committee (PDAC), discussed one possible approach the committee recommended, “It was suggested that possibly we could develop an arrangement such that we could the sheriff’s office, City of Wymore and the Southern School could combine and cooperate to utilize the School Resource Officer (SRO), deputy, I should say, to patrol the City of Wymore.”S ROs are specially trained law enforcement officers that work in school settings to ensure safety and provide a positive connection between law enforcement and students. The Gage County Sheriff’s Office has assigned a single deputy to act as SRO in three school districts, Freeman, Southern, and Diller-Odell.The PDAC proposal would have that the SRO would continue to spend the already assigned time in one school, Southern, and the remainder of a 40-hour week would involve patrolling the City of Wymore and high-priority calls in southern Gage County.Gage County would then hire another SRO to serve Freeman and Diller-Odell.Gage County Sheriff Millard Gustafson was not at the city council meeting but had stated prior to the meeting that it is a “workable” cooperative program and it would provide more law enforcement presence in Wymore. Wymore Fire Chief Mark Meintz, who is also acting police chief, said it was more likely that the SRO would spend most or all of his time at the school rather than patrolling the streets of Wymore. The SRO would be in town for emergency calls but Meintz noted that if there was an emergency, such as a robbery, “If it means the school being locked down, he probably won’t leave. He’ll probably stay in that school.”“Our biggest group of people in this community is at that school,” said Meintz, who believes the proposal was needed, “To get started with something to provide this community with law enforcement, which I’m telling you, it needs it.”Meintz said, “The main thing is we feel that it’s important to protect our younger population and community, and if we guide them in the right direction by having the school deputy there, that it would maybe take care of some of the other problems or keep them from going in the wrong direction.”Councilperson Sue Sapp expressed doubt that the SRO was needed at the school 40 hours a week, “My problem is, if it’s eight hours a day at school, I can’t see that they’re going to be busy the whole eight hours.” Tim Sedlaceck, Wymore Utilities Superintendent, pointed out, “Well, if he’s patrolling here and down and there is something at the school, he can be there in three minutes.”Part of the agreement would possibly require the City to turn over one of the police vehicles to Gage County. Wymore still hopes to rebuild the police department. Councilperson Max Allen said, “If it is our intention to continue to try to build a police department here, or to rebuild a police department, I don’t feel that we should be giving up our vehicle and have it rebranded. Just in my opinion, that would mean that if we did hire an officer, we would have a huge expense right out the door.” VanBoening said the proposal was still very preliminary, “To me, we’re kind of arguing right now over specifics that nobody has come to the table to say, this is what we want.”No action was taken at the meeting.

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