Hello Mayor and council members. I hope all of you have had a good month. The start of the holiday season with Thanksgiving day and Christmas coming soon. I hope all of you got the opportunity to spend some time with family and loved ones.

I feel like a broken record sometimes here but the hiring process continues here at the police department. As of this writing, I have two candidates that have been given conditional offers. One has passed the background investigation phase and is scheduled for the next phase, psychological evaluation, later in December. The second candidate is just getting started with his background investigation. Last month was a bit different as one of the candidates failed the background investigation which prompted us to go to the next candidate in line. It’s a bit frustrating after putting a significant amount of time into a candidate, only to have them fail the background phase. But, we have and never will lower our standards at this agency. We have a duty to make sure we get the very best candidates available to us. The good news is that we are still getting very good and qualified applications. More interviews are happening this month as we still anticipate one more open position sometime at the beginning of 2022.

December will be a busy month as we prepare for our annual “Shop with a Cop” program. In the past, we have partnered with Clackamas County and other agencies for this event. Last year we did our own and it was much more local and successful. This year, we have more children and families signed up than ever before. We’ve also had overwhelming support from community members who have donated funding and time to this event. The event will be held on Saturday, December 11th. I will detail this event in next months council report. We are all looking forward to spending some time with these kids and their families.

Lastly, I wanted to let all of you know that the police department will be having it’s annual holiday and employee appreciation get together in early January. It’s a time for all of the staff to get together in a relaxed atmosphere and enjoy each others company. I also announce our employee of the year at this event.

That is all for now. Have a great month, Merry Christmas and Happy New Year to all of you and your families. Chief Roberts