Hello Mayor and Council members. I sincerely hope you have had a great summer. The police department continues to recruit in our ongoing attempt to get back to full staffing. As of this writing, we have two open positions and two candidates that have tentative offers for those two vacancies. We are hopeful that both candidates will be successfully complete the remaining phases of the process and can start sometime in early fall.

We are also anticipating the departure of another officer within the next couple of months. This officer has decided to leave Oregon and move to another state on the east coast. In anticipation of his departure, we have continued the recruitment process in anticipation of the vacancy this will create. It is our intention to establish a hiring list to be prepared to fill this position quickly. Since I do not have a date of resignation, the hiring list will be active for one year. I should note that this officer is part of my administrative team. This will create a need to promote an officer into the vacant position. The positive aspect of this is that it will create an opportunity for promotion for our folks here at the police department. We have several capable officers that I believe would be able to step into that role with relatively little additional training.

I’m excited about the creation of the homeless task force and look forward to being involved as the process continues. I have appointed Officer Jeff Argrubright to act as a liaison for this task force and have began the process providing him with additional resources from other cities as well as training as needed. He is excited to be part of this. I wanted to provide this partnership early on in the process. As the members of the task force begin to role out a plan, we will be ready to assist with whatever the task force sees fit.

As summer is winding down, I hope all of you had a chance to get away from work and all that is going on in the world and just enjoy life a bit. I have not been able to get away from work this summer much but plan on taking some time off in September to spend with my family. Have a great week everyone and I’ll see you soon. Chief Roberts