Ogden, Weber County law enforcement reps discuss staffing, jail expansion - Standard-Examiner
Tim Vandenack, Standard-Examiner
OGDEN — Recruitment and retention of officers are big issues among Weber County and Utah law enforcement officials.
“Everything else is predicated on how well we can do that,” Col. Michael Rapich of the Utah Highway Patrol said Monday.
At the same time, law enforcement officers always seem to have more and more responsibilities to manage, says Jake Sube, deputy chief with the Ogden Police Department.
“It’s not just that we don’t have enough people to do the job, it’s that law enforcement is being asked to do more than it’s ever been asked to do,” Sube said. “So we’re expected to be social workers, we’re expected to be drug and alcohol counselors, we’re expected to be parents. A myriad of different things, and we kind of have a mantra at the Ogden Police Department of, ‘We can do anything, we can’t do everything.'”
Rapich and Sube spoke Monday at a panel discussion at the Weber Center in Ogden on law enforcement, hosted by Weber County Republican Women. Need for more recruits — a standing issue among agencies across the state — surfaced as a big concern. Also speaking were Weber County Sheriff Ryan Arbon, Ogden Mayor Mike Caldwell and Weber County Attorney Chris Allred.
Tim Vandenack, Standard-Examiner
But manpower wasn’t the only thing. Arbon noted need for more jail space and provided more details on the proposal to expand the Weber County jail facility at 1400 Depot Drive in Ogden. More and more details on the proposal, which has a preliminary price tag of $62 million, are starting to emerge.
“Right now Weber County needs to add to their jail, in size,” Arbon said.
The expansion proposal, which came from a consultant’s feasibility study, calls for the addition of a medical and mental health wing, two new pods that would hold nearly 400 more inmates and a community-release center for low-risk offenders. The community-release center would tentatively replace the Kiesel facility next door to the Ogden Municipal Building in the city center.
Arbon has been working with Weber County commissioners on the plans and has also started outreach to community leaders.
“It’s not something I’m just going to say, ‘Hey, give me $62 million,'” Arbon said. “We’re doing this in a methodical process. I invited a bunch of leaders within our county about a month and a half ago. We ran it through them to get a feel on how important it is to the public, where’s the need, what can we do to improve on things. It was well-received.”
Tim Vandenack, Standard-Examiner
More outreach is planned, though, and he said whether to commit funding to the project will probably be put to a vote of the public as a bond question on an election ballot. He wants the public to know the details and to weigh in rather than the initiative moving forward just because he thinks it’s needed.
“We don’t operate that way,” Arbon said. “We include our community partners and members to help us make those decisions.”
LOOKING FOR PARTNERSHIPS
On retention and recruitment, Rapich said in years past, finding people interested in taking law enforcement jobs was relatively easy. If the Utah Highway Patrol advertised to fill 10 vacancies, they might get 1,000 people interested. Now, if the agency wants to fill 50-60 vacancies, they might get 25 applicants.
Turnover, sometimes officers moving to other Utah agencies that offer slightly higher pay, takes a toll, Caldwell said. “It really does destabilize the department culture, its chemistry and everything we’re trying to build,” he said.
Sube noted that around half the members the Ogden police force have less than four years of experience because of turnover. That has created a push to increasingly work with other organizations in the community that can help the department in certain circumstances.
Tim Vandenack, Standard-Examiner
Ogden Mayor Mike Caldwell addresses a panel discussion on law enforcement on Monday, March 7, 2022. Weber County Republican Women hosted the event, held at the Weber Center in Ogden.
Dealing with the homeless, he noted, is an increasingly big focus of police efforts, detracting from other community policing efforts.
“It’s trying to narrow down what is critical for us to do and what partnerships can we build to get the end result we need, but not rely on a badge to solve the problem,” Sube said. “We can’t arrest our way out of every problem.”
On a more personal note, Arbon and Caldwell noted the importance of offering thanks to officers for the work they do. “Just saying thanks. That gives us so much more gas in the tank,” Arbon said.
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source: https://www.standard.net/police-fire/2022/mar/09/ogden-weber-county-law-enforcement-reps-discuss-staffing-jail-expansion/
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