By MATT THACKER
Jeffersonville Planning Director Jim Urban asked the City Council at a special meeting Wednesday night to consider hiring new fire and police officers beginning in 2010, when the city’s annexation of the Oak Park area takes hold.
The idea met resistance from some council members because the city is not required to provide police and fire protection to annexed Oak Park residents until 2011.
In response, Urban said that county police stopped regularly patrolling areas that have already been annexed shortly after the annexation there took effect. He said the Clark County Sheriff’s Department still responds to emergency calls.
“It’s the mayor’s interest to start [the new officers] as soon possible,” he said. “We are gearing up for annexation.”
In 2008, Jeffersonville annexed portions to the north and east of the city limits. Oak Park residents remonstrated, but ultimately, the courts sided with the city. The annexation of Oak Park will take effect in January, and the city has one year to start providing noncapital services to them, such as police and fire protection.
Councilman Ed Zastawny said the original plan was for 18 new police officers and 15 new fire officers to be hired to deal with the annexation. Six police officers already have been hired.
Urban asked the council to leave room in next year’s budget for 10 new officers — at cost of $440,000. He said the mayor’s plan, however, is to only hire six officers next year and seven in 2011.
Council members expressed concern that the residents there would not being paying taxes yet, but would be receiving city services.
“I just think that’s letting the county — their responsibility — off the hook for a whole year,” said Councilman Nathan Samuel, the council’s liaison to the Jeffersonville Police Department.
Urban responded that it could take many months for new officers to go through the academy and complete training.
Councilman Ron Grooms said the city would have to find another way to pay for the new officers if the council grants the request.
“It’s going to be awfully hard to fund this budget,” he said.
Council members also were confused as to why a special meeting was called in the first place.
Grooms said Urban had asked them to call a meeting, and he thought they were going to discuss financing a new police station approved by the council last month, as well as budgeting for the hiring of new officers.
Urban said he did not have specific numbers to present the council and had no information with him about the police station.
Four of the five Jeffersonville Police Department Merit Commission members were in attendance. At one point in the meeting, Grooms asked what was the point of the meeting, and said the merit commission members came to the meeting expecting to hear information about the police station.
Commission President Conrad Moorer then said members would leave, and they all exited the room.
Urban said he had planned for Mayor Tom Galligan to attend, but he is out of town. Grooms said he also would take responsibility for the miscommunication about the meeting.
Joe Hubbard, president of the Fraternal Order of Police Lodge 100, said three new officers began work this week. Grooms said no funding had to be approved for them. He said that if they were replenishing officers who were injured or retired, the administration would not need approval from the council.
The hiring and potential discipline of police officers has been a touchy subject for the merit commission and city administration recently. Larry Thomas, communications director for the city, said in an previous article in The Evening News that the commission will not be valid until 2010 because rules for the board were not adopted within 90 days of the five commissioners being named.
Indiana statute states that rules should be set within 90 days after commissioners are appointed. Attorneys for the merit commission and FOP have argued that the time period is a guideline rather than a deadline, according to previous reports in this newspaper.
Merit Commissioner Monty Snelling said after the Wednesday meeting that three officers were hired by the mayor last week. They were all lateral transfers from other police departments. He said the commissioners did not learn about the hires until after they were finalized.
“We should have been the ones to hire them,” Snelling said. “I’m concerned about it. It doesn’t set up a good working relationship, but I’m not going to speculate on why we weren’t told.”
Moorer said that future police hires should go through the merit commission. He said a meeting for public discussion about the commission’s proposed rules will be at 6 p.m. Sept. 10. A meeting to finalize the rules will be held at 5 p.m. Sept. 14.
“If they’re going to hire new police officers, then that should come through us,” Moorer said.
When asked by a reporter after the meeting if the administration would hire new officers in the future or if they would go through the merit commission, Urban said, “No comment. That’s not what we’re here to talk about.”
