The battle for more police at Tuesday’s special City Council meeting ended with the addition of seven officers to the Madison Police Department in a 14 to 6 vote.
The heated debate involved either adding the suggested seven officers this year or reducing that number to two, as Mayor Bauman proposed in the 2002 Operating Budget. Bauman’s proposal would have maintained the existing ratio of 1.78 police officers per 1,000 citizens.
City Council president Ald. Gary Poulson, District 20, opened the debate.
“The issue of public safety is critical and needs to be addressed,” Poulson said.
Ald. Tim Bruer, District 14, said he agreed, stressing that not having adequate police resources has been a long-standing problem.
Many alders addressed the issue of whether the police department could continue to meet the growing demands of the Madison area.
Bruer, along with others, said Madison has been growing at an unprecedented rate. Therefore, to continue to provide sufficient safety to citizens, the MPD should expand as well.
Police Chief Richard Williams and the MPD asked for seven additional officers, which basically adds one more beat officer per shift throughout the day.
Beat officers usually perform more basic services and lower-priority calls, freeing other officers to handle high-priority calls more efficiently.
Mayor Sue Bauman said adding seven police officers would not alleviate the problem. She said it would actually cause more problems within the department, as well as throughout the city.
“If we were to add seven additional police officers, we would keep denying other departments,” Bauman said. “The police department would not be able to work with other agencies to make our city healthy, safe and clean.”
Bauman also said adding another police officer to every shift would actually cause more problems within the department.
At the present time, the police department does not have enough squad cars, support staff or detectives to handle the addition of seven more members to the team.
“Safety is our number-one priority,” Bauman said. “We’re not going to become less safe keeping the same ratio within the next year.”
Others alders disagreed with Bauman.
“Feeling safe in this community is the number-one priority,” said Ald. Steve Holtzman, District 19.
“We need to stand for it; otherwise we will see a decline in the community.”
