The Ypsilanti Courier
A Heritage Newspaper
Weekly Publication
More time needed for police study
Committee to have report finished by May 1
By Austen Smith, Editor
PUBLISHED: March 15, 2007
A comprehensive study looking at alternative policing options for Ypsilanti Township will be reviewed by attorneys before being released to the public.
Advertisement
Township officials aired concerns at last week's board meeting whether the information contained in the study, which began early last year, would conflict with an ongoing lawsuit over the cost and terms of contracted police services with Washtenaw County.
Officials set a May 1 deadline before the final report is to be submitted to Township Attorney Doug Winters for review.
Township Trustee David Ostrowski, chairman of the police services committee, said board members were concerned that the report might contain information that shouldn't be released to the public.
"We wanted the attorney to review the report to make sure there wasn't any information that could jeopardize the ongoing litigation," Ostrowski said.
In addition, neighboring communities have provided confidential information about their police operations to help township officials with the study. That information caused board members to close committee meetings to the public, after they had originally designated the meetings as public.
"We closed the meetings out of respect to those communities," said Ypsilanti Township Supervisor Ruth Ann Jamnick.
"We have received information related to their operations. We had to enter into confidentiality statements (with the other communities) to get the information," she said.
The committee is planning on meeting two more times, before the May 1 deadline, in order to review the report and compose a final draft, Jamnick said.
Township officials had set the report deadline at the end of 2006. Public Safety Director Mike Radzik said that timeline has been revised several times because of scheduling conflicts and information gathering.
"There's no delay, the report isn't finished," he said. "We were supposed to have something near the end of last year, then that got put back to the end of the first quarter. Another extension was granted after that, there were a lot of scheduling conflicts and committee members were not always available."
Radzik said he wants to regroup the committee in order to finalize the report. However, he said they will not be making a recommendation to the board.
"The original charge from the board was to explore what all of the options are as far as police service and to give some indication what would be necessary for each option legally, financially and operations wise," he said.
"There will not a recommendation, once the board reviews the report, I imagine they will zero in on one or two options."
Without going into too much detail, Ostrowski said they have compiled information for all facets of policing including creating a township police department, entering into regional policing with neighboring communities, contracting police services with other departments and continuing with current contracts with the Washtenaw County Sheriff's Department.
"Pretty much all of that information is just sitting there, we just need to finalize the report," he said. "There are numbers, as far as cost, associated with each proposal, and all of our information is pretty close factually as we gathered a lot from other communities and what they are doing for police services."
Despite not presenting a recommendation to the board, Ostrowksi believes this report will determine the future of policing in the township.
"This report is probably going to determine which avenue the township is going to take for future police services for our community."
Jamnick said they will have to be making some tough decisions this year.
Having already signed four-year contracts with the sheriff's department while being able to continue their lawsuit against the county, she said they already know the costs associated with contracting with the county.
"We're just trying to look at any and all alternatives for police and to make an informed decision for our community."
Not all stories are guaranteed to appear
online. The Web edition contains a reasonable
sampling of the print edition stories.
For the most complete news coverage, we invite you to
subscribe
to the print edition of the paper.
TOP JOBS
