Not once, not twice, but for the third time this year the small Texas town of Bartlett is without a police chief or much less a police department. Johnny Whisenant, the third Bartlett police chief this year, resigned on Monday for personal reasons saying he wanted to work somewhere else. He left 6 months after becoming police chief of the small town with a population of roughly 1,500 people. He joined the department in the summer of 2006 and brought an impressive police background with him. Bartlett Mayor Arthur White would not eleborate on the resignation but said many small towns around the country are going through similar growing population struggles and are losing police chiefs to larger cities. White said none of the police chiefs left because of any ill will. The town of Bartlett put it's police department on probation in the spring of 2006 when a departure, a retirement and the placement of an officer on administrative duty left the town with only one officer. Former police chief Jerry Glaeser began rebuilding the department later that spring. He retired in February after only 6 months on the job. His replacement or succeeder, Mike Reed, stepped down in March after only one month. The police chiefs of Bartlett said the town was not budgeting enough money to maintain a full-time staff and equiptment. Mayor Arthur White thought the current budget of $197,410 a year was good enough. White said an interim chief will be selected at the next city council meeting.
Should the town of Bartlett increase the yearly budget for the police department? In my opinion, yes. With the growing small town populations taking place around the country, there is nothing more important than a well-equiped police department. Furthermore, with a growing population the budget needs to expand as well. They need more full-time officers, patrol cars, and reasons to get their police chiefs to stay longer than 6 months. Kind of like an unwritten verbal committment between the city and the local law enforcement. This will enable them to build for the oncoming population wave. Should they have more than 2 active policemen? Yes! Even with a population of 1,500 there should be at least 5 full-time active policemen. 2 policeman is just rediculous. What if there is a town mutany? There's no stopping the locals. A town needs order, security, and justice and you don't get that with two policeman. You get a dozen of donuts and some overworked policmen. Should the town of Barlett lead by example? Again, yes! After attracting all this local media attention they should be the first to increase their budget and bring change to small towns across the country and throughout Texas. That could start a frenzy of change and get other small towns like Bartlett to increase their budgets on local law enforcement.
This article affects all the small towns in Texas and all the others around the country. Local law enforcement is the foundation toward expanding and re-building a small town that is bringing in a giant wave of newcomers. The actions taken by the town of Bartlett can serve as an example to all the other small towns in Texas and around the country that are struggling with budget problems on police force and expansion.
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http://www.statesman.com/news/content/news/stories/local/10/17/1017bartlett.html
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The City of Bartlett is not ready or equipped for those kind of changes.
In order to have a professional police department, the city must first actively keep the local fire department, which contributes next to nothing to the city government, out of local politics.
The city government then must make the decision to allow the Chief of Police to run the police department without the threat of outside pressure or interference. In this arena, a good start is in place, but as long as corrupt know it alls like Arthur Mason sit on the council, the police will never be able to effectively do their jobs without fear of reprisal. A strong chain of command must be put in place. As it stands now, as it has for years, the Chief of Police of Bartlett must answer to at least 6 different people at any given time, all with different ideas and agendas.
Bartlett MUST employ a city manager for the Chief of Police to work with. Department heads should answer to this manager and not to a misinformed and sometimes out of control governing body.
After this framework is in place, the city would then have a framework in place for success.
Next is to hire and BACK a Chief of Police, again allowing him to run the department free of interference.
Then a strong effort, one like that made by the last Chief, to aggressively pursue and hire qualified, quality police officers and reserves has to be made.
The substandard equipment and low pay and benifits has to be addressed to give your officers the proper tools and motivation for the job. Again, the last Chief was able to get the government to wake up somewhat, getting pay for police officers to a semi competitive level, and with the purchase of a beautiful new police patrol car.
However, paying the Police Chief of ANY city $31,000 per year is a joke.
Elgin, Bastrop County, Bastrop PD, Smithville PD, Liberty Hill PD, Jarrell PD, Salado PD, Belton PD, and the like all for the most part pay OFFICERS what Bartlett pays its Chief. Granted, Bartlett is smaller, but Bartlett also has a state prison feeding it money.
The Mayor also needs to stop lying about the size of the police budget. He includes over $20,000 for their ACO agreement with us in the budget for the PD.
And...last, the difficulty that cant be overcome is the shotty dispatching of Bell County, the lackluster and lazy Bell County Deputies, and the fact that unfortunately Bartlett has 45% of its town in Bell County. Lying in more than one county triples the degree of difficulty imposed upon the Chiefs office.
All of the above issues are fixable, and fixable quickly, but the citizens and City as a whole are either unwilling or just unable to provide the necessary support.
Bartletts last Police Chief was highly motivated, well respected, intelligent, innovative, and brought that department closer to the community than many of the past. I am not surprised that a larger, more professional agency swept him away, and I wonder had the above been in place, would he still be here
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