Deliberation surrounding the city board's decision on Tuesday evening to approve a memorandum of understanding between the school district and the police department elicited a brief, yet unique discussion regarding school safety among the board's members and the police chief.
The memorandum of understanding is an ongoing agreement the school district has with the police department and allows for the continued presence of School Resource Officers in the community's public schools, provided that the school district pays for half of their salaries while the city pays the remainder of this expense. It received unanimous approval for the 2018-2019 school year and will cost the city $156,562.11.
While this is an increase from the previous school year, in which the cost was about $126,591, it is needed due to the fact that the police department is seeking to increase the number of SROs from four to five, said police chief Jim Wilmeth. No specific officer has been chosen to fill this role thus far, and the police department is currently undergoing recruitment processes.
Despite the slight increase in officers, however, the school district has a total of seven facilities, five of which have an SRO assigned to them but the remaining two have to be split up between two of the SROs, Wilmeth said. This deficit was highlighted as a result of an inquiry from Director Bob Coleman, who asked Wilmeth if there was a sense of hesitation present on the part of the school board or police department to provide an SRO to every facility, particularly because of the nationwide concern surrounding the possibility of having to handle an active shooter situation.
"I do not think it is a question of reluctance, I think it is a question of being able to provide an equal level of justice to everyone within the city that has a right to expect that from the city and the police department, and we have to balance that," Wilmeth said. "I am a grandfather. I am a father. The children in my life and the lives of everyone here are incredibly important to us, but so are our grandparents, so are those individuals who live in our town that have disabilities.
"The other thing that is really important to recognize is the presence of a SRO, does not, in and of itself, guarantee that a shooter is not going to still appear on those grounds. As in any other type of law enforcement, you can only be in one place at one time, and if there is an assailant who intends to come in from another point of view or another area of the facility, that SRO may still be the furthest away."
The conversation shifted when Director Steve Beers mentioned a special commission was formed by Gov. Asa Hutchinson -- for the purpose of determining the best solutions for preventing gun violence in schools -- had recently released a preliminary draft outlining their proposals. The report Beers was referring to is a plan the state's law enforcement and security subcommittee was tasked with developing, and addresses five primary topics pertaining to things that may either neutralize the threat in an active-shooter situation, or prevent them from occurring in the first place.
These five topics include law enforcement, mental health and prevention, safety and security, intel and communications and physical security and transportation; each of are assigned specific goals, objectives, strategies and best practices, according to the document. While the report suggests a range of options, such as requiring the installation of "ballistic rated glazing" on all windows that are on classroom doors, or that classroom doors be built with materials strong enough to withstand the impact of certain ammunition, its overall, primary suggestion is to increase the number of armed individuals on school properties.
Beers said although more research and further review would be necessary prior to implementing any of these proposals, doing so could potentially be in the community's best interest.
"I do wonder if we as a community need to lean into the wisdom of the governor's office -- (who) both in Arkansas and in Texas -- have issued recently a statement saying 'Hey, here is best practice,'" Beers said. "In short, it is my understanding the best practices are to have an armed officer or armed personnel in each building, so that might be something that we want to, once we do the research and look over what the governor has suggested, continue a conversation with the school system (about). I am not proposing that we shift what we are doing here tonight, I am just suggesting that we probably have some research to look at."
Mayor John Turner then weighed in, and by all accounts, appeared supportive of the ideas proposed in the commission's report.
"Steve, I asked the same question of the chief and staff during a meeting and one of the things that I remember when listening to Gov. Hutchinson's press conference was (he was) stressing the fact that they were going to have to look for ways to fund it, and I am not sure that a lot of the school districts (across the state) may want to wait," Turner said. "I do not want to minimize it by saying we wait to see if there is going to be money, because there is a lot of school districts that do not have resource officers period.
"Obviously, there is a big need in those districts because (the schools) may just not have the money to do it and they cannot partner with the school district and the police department because there is no money there for either department to do that. But, I know he has challenged that commission to also come up with a way to fund additional resource officers."
Aside from this discussion, there were two other items on the evening's agenda, which are summarized below.
• Unanimous approval to formally adopt the proposed goals for city for 2018-2019.
• Unanimous approval to place ordinance 18-15 on its first reading, suspending the rules and reading by title only. If approved, this ordinance would vacate or close certain right-of-ways near Southside Elementary School. It will be revisited by the board during their next meeting on August 7.
General News on 07/22/2018