Hello Mayor and Council members. I hope you all had a good month. We continue with the hiring process but I’m happy to say we are near the end and will soon be fully staffed once again. Officer Ryan Anderson was recently sworn in at the last council meeting and is currently finishing up his onboarding process with the police department. He will begin his field training within the next week or two. The last two officers that have been hired, Officer Carter and Officer Anderson, do not have to attend the DPSST basic police academy. Both have already attended. This will greatly reduce the training time before they are solo and able to begin patrol on their own.

We will have one vacant position when Sergeant Ryan Bickle resigns from our agency. Sgt. Bickle is relocating his family to Florida some time in April of this year. We have a candidate to fill this position when he leaves. That candidate is Scott Jones. You may know Scott as he currently works for the City of Sandy in the IT department. Scott has finished and passed his background investigation and psychological exam and has been given an offer of employment from myself. He is yet to have a solid start date but will most likely start some time in the middle of April. As far as I know, Scott will be the first officer here that has transferred from another department within the City of Sandy.

I just got word last week that our vehicle order for the three patrol vehicles that council and the budget committee approved has been cancelled. We were given no reason from the Dodge corporation except that parts for the V-8 engine were not available. This prompted me to put together another order for three Ford vehicles. The cancellation did not allow me to reorder the Dodge vehicles and the new order for the Ford vehicles puts us in the back of the line for the builds. So, instead of having our vehicles delivered by the end of March, because our original order was placed last year, we will not see any new vehicles until September of 2022. This puts us in a challenging position with our aging fleet.

At the PD, we are excited about spring being just around the corner and the hope of some warmer and longer days ahead. I hope all of you have a great month and I will see you soon. Chief Roberts