Take-home patrol cars would work

During my six years as chief of police, one thing I was unable to accomplish that would have increased recruitment and retention of employees while enhancing safety is the implementation of a fleet program.

Such a program would have involved purchasing, either simultaneously or by phase-in, about 100 marked cars in addition to the 45 maintained in the current partial fleet. Each uniformed officer would have been assigned his/her own unit that he/she could either drive only back and forth to work or, under a more permissive policy, drive around town even while off duty, as is the case in Midland.

In the latter situation, officers are required to be armed and, unless they have non-law enforcement passengers in the car, are required, when close, to respond to calls of crimes in progress. Therefore, such a program is not merely a "perk" for these employees, but is a means to reduce crime. Even within a minimalist program, under which officers may only drive the cars back and forth to work, 145 marked police cars would be visibly present in neighborhoods scattered throughout Odessa. Within a more robust program, in which officers are allowed to operate the vehicles while off duty, even more police omnipresence would be created.

Currently, the City of Odessa administrators routinely utilize the "pick six" cities of Amarillo, Lubbock, Wichita Falls, Abilene, San Angelo and Midland to establish bases of comparison in any number of areas. All six of these cities currently provide, or are in the process of providing, a fleet program for their police officers. During most of my 25 years with the Odessa Police Department, the annual Part I crime rate in Midland was lower than Odessa's by a significant percentage. While the reasons for this are myriad and complex, education and experience tell me that this difference could have been far less significant had we been utilizing the same crime-fighting philosophy with regard to police omnipresence via a take-home car program.

With reference to recruitment/retention, our city leaders have been generous to Odessa police employees to the extent possible. Earlier this year, the mayor and council acted on the city manager's recommendation and adjusted the police department's salary structure such that it is now on par with that of Midland. I give credit to those city leaders for not only awarding Odessa police officers for the complex and difficult jobs that they do, but for also thereby avoiding a potentially costly and divisive referendum over police pay. But, when it comes to attracting new employees and retaining existing ones, the Odessa Police Department does not operate on a level playing field with other cities that offer a car.

The City of Midland and those cities that pay as much or more than the city of Odessa can still recruit and retain more effectively when they can offer a take-home vehicle. Despite the recent pay restructure, the department still had 26 openings for officers with 15 in various stages of training - an effective shortage of 41 in a department with about 170 positions.

What about the cost of such a program? In the short run, the initial outlay is expensive; about $4 million to buy and outfit 100 cars (my calculations while I was chief). The long-term costs are not much more than the city spends annually now. This is because the wear-and-tear on a car assigned to one individual is much less than for a shared car and because each car is replaced only after six or seven years, rather than every three years as is the case now.

To pay for the initial costs, I suggested the use of capital improvement funds, which are utilized for one-time, expensive projects, such as water/sewer infrastructure improvements, and which are then paid for over a period of 20 years. These projects often cost far more than $4 million. When I asked the city manager about the legality of the use of such funds for a police fleet program, he said that it would be legal, but that it was "bad policy" to buy equipment paid for over 20 years but replaced after only six or seven. I contend that the investment is not simply for a batch of cars, but rather for the permanent implementation of a program that has great potential for crime reduction, for the recruitment of high quality police officers, and for the retention of existing police officers. I must add that the city manager philosophically supports the concept of a fleet program. The difficulty has been finding a way to pay for it.

I would suggest that residents of Odessa contemplate contacting the city manager and/or their representatives on the city council to ask them to revisit this issue. If city leaders can secure millions of dollars for water parks and a golf course and can afford to put on that course "more than a million gallons of water a day" (see Odessa American articles, May 29 and Aug. 2), surely they can identify funds for citizen safety.

Pipes recently retired as Odessa's police chief and now lives in Alpine.