Brandon Twp.- Supervision will be expanded at the police substation this spring.
The township board approved by a 4-3 vote at their Jan. 4 meeting a motion to replace one of the patrol investigators with a lieutenant. The motion does not change the number of police officers contracted to serve the township through the Oakland County Sheriff’s Office. Clerk Candee Allen and Trustees Bill DeWitt, Jayson Rumball and Liz Waters voted yes. Supervisor Kathy Thurman, Treasurer Terri Darnall and Trustee Dana DePalma voted no.
Dick Lowthian, a township resident, spoke in favor of the change prior to the vote.
‘The only thing I stand to gain is an increase in my property taxes and an increase in police services,? he said. ‘Road patrol officers have great discretion as they perform their duties. They range from making a decision about issuing tickets or using deadly force. It’s helpful to have a supervisor around when making those decisions. It’s not reasonable to expect one supervisor to be available 24/7 for 12 officers.?
John Neff, also a township resident, voiced his opposition.
‘My understanding is the detective will now be a sergeant/detective and that will suffer,? he said. ‘Overtime will go up. What stops crime is boots on the street, not administrators sitting in an office.?
OCSO Undersheriff Michael McCabe and Major Bob Smith were present to explain to the board why the change should be made.
‘Law enforcement is under attack? we’ll get through it and supervision is an important part of that,? said McCabe.
Smith noted that a substation commander has more to do than supervise the deputies on road patrol. The commander also acts as a liaison to governmental entities, promotes community policing with the stakeholders, resolves contract issues, and communicates regularly with the prosecutor’s office.
‘The bottom line is, it’s time for realignment so you don’t have a 1-man operation,? Smith said. ‘A sergeant can adjust schedules to come in on midnights, but it’s hard to ask of one individual. Give us the numbers more normative nationwide so our numbers will be better in a court of law if we are faced with a situation… We deal with more complex issues than we did 12 years ago and deputies need supervision.?
Previously, a sergeant was the highest chain of command at the substation. Now, the substation will have a lieutenant, as well as a sergeant who will also serve as a detective.
The change in command structure will add $35,459 to the annual OCSO contract for the township, which the board approved in November at a cost of $1,603,501 for 2016. The township contracts for 12 officers, which previously included 9 road patrol deputies, one sergeant, one patrol investigator (detective) and one school liaison officer (for which the district reimburses the township for the 176 days this deputy spends in the schools; the remainder of the year, the township utilizes this deputy as an additional detective/road patrol).
The board began examining adding supervision at the station after Greg Glover was promoted to lieutenant last month and transferred to Rochester Hills. OCSO prefers substations to have both a lieutenant and sergeant, and Brandon was one of only three substations in the county with a sergeant as the top commander. Springfield and Addison are now the only substations without a lieutenant. Smith and McCabe said at the board’s Monday meeting that the preferred ratio of deputies to supervisors is no more than 7:1.
‘I felt that the structure we had in place was not broke, so there was not a need to fix it,? said Thurman on why she voted no to a change in substation command structure. ‘We’ve had serious calls in the past and the sergeant substation commander was able to handle everything with excellent outcomes… One of the reasons for proposing the change was to allow for more supervision, but part of the reason we contract with OCSO is because they offer supervision from command staff out of the sheriff’s office in Pontiac when local command staff isn’t available. In addition, they offer backup from neighboring communities that contract with OCSO when needed. I believe the support and supervision is already in existence. There has never been a complaint where we didn’t have enough supervision or staffing at a crime scene that I have heard of. Every commander we’ve had had the understanding they would be on call 24/7.”
DePalma said she would rather add another deputy if the board was going to increase the contract cost.
Rumball cited a past survey of the community in which the majority of respondents said policing was the most important service in the community, as well as the 4.25 police millage that voters passed in 2014 with 1,480 ‘yes? votes, or about 65 percent, to 781 ‘no? votes, 35 percent.
“The community has said over and over they support the police and this motion does that,” he said.
Allen said she voted yes because the majority of the citizens at the meeting were in favor of the lieutenant position and also because the decision is one that the township is not locked into forever.
“I knew what this was going to cost us for this year,” she said. “If we waited and did it next year, I don’t know what that cost will be? my guess is it will increase. I voted for the known versus the unknown. I do feel having only one person in charge 24/7 is a lot to ask. This will benefit the township.”
McCabe agreed.
“They will see results,” he said. “There will be more productivity and the deputies will benefit from getting proper direction and their questions answered. Nothing will suffer, it will be more efficient with more supervision.”
More than 5,500 calls were made in Brandon Township for police services in 2015.
The substation structure change will bring back Glover in March as commander and will give the dual role of detective and sergeant to Dale Brown.
Despite the increase in the cost for the contract change, Thurman said she hopes the board will be able to decrease the police millage levied on residents, possibly to 3.50 mills. While the full 4.25 mills had to be levied in 2015, the first year following the vote, the board approved lowering the 2016 levy to 4 mills.