By Ashley McCarty-
The West Union Village Council hired two new officers and met community backlash at their meeting on July 14.
“Before we have anybody out there, we’re going to get through some of these other things first so they’re done, and then we’ll get to Christeena [Patrick] and a couple others,” said Mayor Jason Buda.
After a motion to approve minutes for the regular meeting on June 23 and special meeting on June 29, Village Solicitor Lisa Rothwell made a correction to the minutes which erroneously stated an executive session had been called for finances instead of personnel at the June 29 meeting.
Councilman Jason Francis made the motion to accept the minutes with revision, Councilman Steve Rothwell seconded and council agrees.
A motion by Steve Rothwell to pay bills was seconded my Councilman Mark Brewer, council agreed.
A motion by Mark Brewer to accept statement of receipts for Mayor’s Court for the month of June for the net amount of: $4,142.16, seconded by Francis; council agrees.
Regarding Resolution 2020-13 Amend the original certificate for Crackle Subdivision project. Francis makes motion, Steve Rothwell seconded and council agrees.
Christeena Patrick then stood to address the council.
“I just want to address that council has a situation with what’s going on in the town when it comes to people breaking in. I understand that this police department only has two guys on right now because they got one out,” said Patrick.
Patrick said she didn’t understand why council wasn’t helping Chief Tim Sanderson find replacement officers.
“You’ve got two officers in from noon to midnight, there’s nobody. Obviously, yesterday, they were breaking in during the day. Poor Theresa Tarvin, she’s been broken into four times. Four times already and one time her grandson was in the house. It’s going to come to a point that somebody is going to get killed in this town. Either they’re going to shoot somebody, or we’re going to start shooting back, and these guys need help. It’s nothing against the police department, they don’t have time to investigate anything because they don’t have help. So my question is, ‘Why can’t you guys help them?’” said Patrick.
Patrick acknowledged the two applications for officers Buda had currently.
“You can have an emergency meeting over funding, and raises, everything else, why can’t you guys put something together in an emergency to do that? Steve says it has to be posted. Tanya posted it for the emergency meeting for the financial aid. What’s the difference of posting that everywhere instead of being in the paper? The way I see it, you guys are just as responsible as they are to help to take care of this village. You signed up for this when everybody voted you guys in. There’s a lot of things you signed up for that, in my opinion, you need to step up for,” said Patrick.
Patrick said it wasn’t right that people were being burglarized.
“What happens when a little elderly lady gets shot, or her grandkid gets shot, or they shoot somebody? Cause I can bet you, these guys are going after whoever shot. They’re more worried about that then they are the people running around. Yeah, my car got broken into, so I’m standing here upset, because it happened; but it’s everywhere, the mayor has been broken into. Yesterday it happened to Mark Brewer, his car almost got stolen out of his driveway; Buda’s neighbors next door, it’s happening constantly, and two officers can’t take care of it,” said Patrick.
Patrick acknowledged it was Sanderson’s responsibility as chief to find help.
“But it’s also your job to help him and as a community, some of us don’t feel like that’s being done. If you’re in that position, I think you should help more. That’s my opinion on it, and I don’t understand why we can’t help them a little more to get help, when this is our community. We’re the county seat, we should have four officers on at least. Every 24/hrs a day, we should have an officer on to help relieve this,” said Patrick.
Patrick said it’s almost impossible for the two current officers to investigate.
“It’s almost impossible for them to investigate anything because they’re going from one call to the next, and they don’t have the time to come back. Only reason mine is being looked at right now is because I happen to be standing up and pushing the issue. So that’s my question, when can you guys step up and start helping these guys find help for our community?”
“The answer to that, is, we advertise for police officers ,” said Steve Rothwell.
Patrick asks when it was last advertised.
“It should have been about two weeks ago,” said Rothwell replied.
Patrick said it was advertised a month ago — longer than a month.
“We know everybody in this room reads the newspaper,” said Patrick.
Steve Rothwell said a couple weeks ago Sanderson was told he could advertise since he expressed he needed help.
“How long ago that was
it exactly I don’t know,” said Rothwell.
Patrick told Rothwell that it was his responsibility as council — and Steve Rothwell interjected.
“Now I’m talking, you sit down. You talked the whole time, now it’s my turn. So we said, yes, go ahead and advertise. As far as helping to get them, we can’t do that. I mean as far as actually help to get them, because we have to look at the applications. They can bring them in to us, but we can’t hire unless it’s recommended by the chief; and, we can only afford to pay so much money. We did change that at the last meeting to pay more money. Before that, we were paying $10.50 to start, and you can’t get anybody for that, I wouldn’t do it for that, so we did raise the money to try to get somebody to apply that we could give a job to. That’s the only thing we can do as far as council,” said Steve Rothwell.
Patrick asks if they have Facebook — pointedly asking Francis.
“You got it, you like to publish stuff, can’t you put it on Facebook announcing it?” said Patrick.
Francis said that he could.
“That’s what I’m saying. There’s communications besides just the newspapers Steve, that’s my point,” said Patrick.
“Here’s another problem, Christeena. The academies, right now — I teach in the academies — and we don’t have enough people to start an academy, because nobody wants to be a cop anymore. We don’t have enough people right now to have a class to start an academy that’s interested. We did, but with everything that went on throughout the United States, people backed out. It was supposed to start Aug. 3, it doesn’t look like it’s going to start Aug. 3, and that takes nine months to get through the academy,” said Mark Brewer.
Patrick said there is a lack of knowledge in the paper that they are hiring.
“I understand last Monday you guys agreed to raise [pay], but it’s been over a month since it’s been in the paper. It’s not being advertised, so if it’s not being advertised, it’s not helping when it’s just Tim out here talking to somebody, or Jeff out here talking to somebody. That’s what I’m getting it. I’m not trying to raise havoc, I mean I’m a concerned citizen. I’m a concealed carry person, and the next person that gets into my stuff, I’m gonna have my gun on me, plain and simple. Just like half of you sitting up there have your concealed carry, and that’s what we’re supposed to do is protect our self. If I’m walking into Speedway to pay for gas — or my husband in this case — at 3:30 a.m., come on now. This is ridiculous. Why do I have to wait for a cop to come from Panhandle to meet me at a gas station where my husband’s car was just broken into, when we should have people in town? That’s my frustration,” said Patrick.
Steve Rothwell said he understood and wished they could afford to have six or eight officers.
“Christeena and I have had several conversations about this, but something new I hadn’t had the opportunity to discuss with Christeena was our efforts to find a police officer. I will point out that we have had ads out on Craigslist — I mean we’ve had a long period of time in which we advertised for [an officer.] Pretty much everywhere we could. We put it on the radio, we did everything, and we got maybe two applications,” said Lisa Rothwell.
Patrick said to pay them more — what they’re owed.
“I know you just raised that pay, but maybe it needs to take more to protect our people in this community. Steve, you’re gonna shoot somebody if they come in your door, aren’t you?” said Patrick.
Rothwell responded “Absolutely.”
“Same with Mark, or anybody else. I know I don’t live in the village, but I work for this village, and I come to this village and I pay for everything through this village, and it’s frustrating to know that when I come to work at the life squad — I’ve got 50 people standing around my car that live in the woods over here, that when you come out at 3 a.m. because we’ve just come off of a run, they’re leaning on our cars. They’re sitting over here on our stuff, and taking things, and it’s not okay,” said Patrick.
Steve Rothwell said he agreed with that.
“But the problem that we’ve got, is we don’t have enough officers, and I know that, and the reason being is we — you know, we got one hurting, one was dismissed — and we haven’t hired anybody to take their place because I haven’t seen an application,” said Steve Rothwell.
Patrick wants to know why the officer out with a [wrist] injury can’t be sitting in the office pre-investigating cases to help get them solved faster.
“I understand he can’t drive a car, he can’t get out and do that, but why can’t he be down there [in the office] helping to start?” said Patrick.
Lisa Rothwell said they didn’t know that answer.
“That’s a chief matter for that. The reality is, we’ve posted, we’ve put a lot of ads out, we will keep doing that, we will keep advertising. We recognize that we’re not going to get qualified applicants because there wasn’t enough money, so we raised that in an attempt to try and pull more qualified applicants. Right now, there’s not even an academy class. That doesn’t say we’re done, doesn’t say we’re giving up, it means that we’re going to keep on pushing, keep on trying, and that’s really all we can do,” said Lisa Rothwell.
Lisa Rothwell said they get frustrated, too.
“Even though I have no vote — but as legal council for these guys, trying to say ‘hey, we got to keep training, hey, we got to keep doing, we’ve got to be active, we got to keep people involved,’ the reality is, when that hits and we still can’t move any mountains, there’s sometimes I think if we could advertise $20/hr and we probably wouldn’t get it. People don’t want the job right now, and I can’t say I blame them. It’s a tough job, and we owe them a lot of respect,” said Lisa Rothwell.
Patrick said she knew what it was like; she had worked with Mark Brewer for many years in law enforcement. Randy Brewer said he and Steve Rothwell have talked about it and no one wants to be an officer anymore.
“Well, there’s villages that are offering $17.50/hr to start, and they can’t get anybody,” said Steve Rothwell.
Lisa Rothwell acknowledged what Patrick was saying, said they will keep working on it.
“It’s nothing against our cops, because I appreciate our cops, I really do, so if we can’t find anybody, why aren’t we changing their schedule around, Tim, to help it out a little? Night shift and day shift both,” said Patrick.
Sanderson said they were on night and day shift.
“If it makes you feel better, we have two applications, Christeena, that the police committee has already looked at,” said Mayor Buda.
Mark Brewer made the motion to accept Ted Grooms’ resignation from council, Steve Rothwell seconded and council approved.
“The people that we have warrants on in the village that are in prison, is there any way that we can go after their commissary money, or money on their books in prison for their fines here at the village?” said Mark Brewer.
Lisa Rothwell said she believed there was a way to do so and she remembered when the village did something like that and will look into it.
Steve Rothwell calls an executive session for personnel. Council returns from executive session.
Mark Brewer makes a motion to hire the two officer applicants — Ethan Scott and Brittany Johnson — at $13/hr, Francis seconds and council agrees. Scott will be full time, Johnson will be auxiliary.
Steve Rothwell makes the motion to hire Clayton Fannin for West Union EMS at $80/shift, Francis seconds, council agreed.
Steve Rothwell makes motion to raise pay of Cory Tolle and Tommy Hackworth to $12.50/hr, Francis seconded and council agreed.
Steve Rothwell makes the motion to revise Christy Hayslip’s job description at the Municipal Building to custodian, laborer at the Water, Street and Sewer Department, Francis seconded and Council approved.
Steve Rothwell made the motion to raise shift pay for Basic EMT’s from $80 to $90/shift, Mark Brewer seconded and council agreed.
Steve Rothwell made the motion to raise Captain Nicole Hackworth’s pay to $175/shift, Francis seconded and council agreed.
Mark Brewer set the next finance meeting to July 27 at 7 p.m. and Francis was appointed to the Finance Committee to take Grooms’ spot.
With no more business before the council, the meeting was adjourned.
The Village Council meeting minutes will be approved by the council at the next meeting, subject to revisions.