By Kevin Litten
Staff writer
Although city council members announced Tuesday University Police would not expand patrols to all of College Park, city officials expressed hope an alternative plan that would coordinate resources and help reach agreement with university officials.
Officials would not provide details about what resources might be shared once the city council formulates a plan to increase police presence, but Vice President of Administrative Affairs John Porcari said he looked forward to working with the city.
“We appreciate the city stepping up and looking at these issues,” Porcari said. “We’ll work closely with them.”
As six possible options were presented at a council meeting Tuesday night, it was clear one of those paths would be immediately shelved.
That option, proposing the council raise taxes to pay for University Police to patrol areas in the city, could have gone without introduction last night, since it had already been declined by the university. But Mayor Stephen Brayman wanted to be clear the city had offered and the university had declined.
“I think a lot of residents at least expected to ask that question,” Brayman said at the Tuesday night meeting, which was the first major answer to a referendum question passed last month directing the council to explore options to increase public safety.
Porcari and Brayman said they had long been at work on finding ways for the two sides to work together, but the university parted ways when it came to utilizing University Police for citywide patrols.
“We already have concurrent jurisdiction for the part of the central business district,” Porcari said. Expanding it into the city “runs the very real risk of hurting the core mission of our police force, which is the campus and areas immediately surrounding the campus.”
The creation of a stand-alone city police force has been talked about among city residents and students for decades – College Park is one of the few Prince George’s County municipalities without its own force. But the massive cost of creating the infrastructure needed for a force motivated city officials to focus on other options.
Nearly all of the options introduced Tuesday night involved contracting police officers from other forces, such as Maryland State Troopers and Prince George’s County Police. Had the university’s force been utilized, it too would have been a contracted force, and Brayman defended pursuing the option as a viable alternative.
“I always understood it was going to be an uphill battle with respect to the university changing the traditional position that they would consider patrolling more,” Brayman said. “It’s a missed opportunity, but my challenge is to move on and try to fix it. Try to address how we move forward.”
One of the options introduced still involves University Police in a far more diminished role. In literature distributed at the council meeting, the item suggested a “hybrid police department utilizing, when possible, existing University Police Department infrastructure.” Brayman said “hybrid” indicated the use of shared resources.
“Theoretically it could be things such as training, shared dispatch, shared communication system,” Brayman said. “Maybe it’s too far-fetched to say we could share facilities.”
Porcari declined to comment on the specific resources University Police would be willing to share, but said he looked forward to working on a detailed plan with the city. University Police Chief Kenneth Krouse did not return calls yesterday.
District 3 Councilman Eric Olson, whose downtown district benefits from a concurrent jurisdiction between university and county police, said the extra patrols were a help, but it did not address the shortage of county officers.
“The county police are overstretched, they’re understaffed, they are doing what they can to concentrate on higher crime areas,” Olson said. “I think clearly the county needs more officers on the street.”
But Olson said after a previous referendum being voted down 10 years ago, he was encouraged to see movement on the council to increase police presence.
“Ten years ago it was beat 10-1 and now we’ve actually won,” Olson said, adding he had always supported a municipal force. “There’s a lot more people interested in making our city safer.”
Olson said he was willing to re-examine contracting police from the county program as well. One point on the option unveiled last night called for increasing funding pay for up to 25,000 annual patrol hours, the equivalent of about 12 full-time officers. Under the current program, officers are hired on a part-time basis from a pool of regulars, rather than hiring full-timers as Bowie does.
“Long ago, we apparently did hire a few dedicated contract officers,” Olson said. The program was scrapped when it proved to be inefficient, he said.
Contact reporter Kevin Litten at littendbk@gmail.com.
