MAPLE HEIGHTS — Wayne Smith and his wife made Maple Heights their home in the 90s. He said his neighborhood these days is pretty problem-free, but that wasn’t the case years ago.
“We had some noisy people and some incidents where the police were always over here,” Smith said.
Smith likes seeing officers patrolling and connecting with residents and said he’d like to see more.
“If they have more police officers, they can frequent the neighborhoods a little bit more you know… more up and down. Side streets as well,” Smith said.
More officers are coming. This month, the U.S. Department of Justice announced that Maple Heights earned a $250,000 grant from its Office of Community Oriented Policing Services Hiring Program (COPS).
“It's a team effort to get these grants,” said Maple Heights Police Chief Todd Hansen.
The grant will cover 75% of entry-level salary and fringe benefits for three years. The city covers the rest. The program stipulates that agencies must retain each funded position for 12 months following the three years.
He said the grant will allow the department to add two police officers.
“I think anybody would take a quarter million dollars to help their budget out, right?” Hansen said. “So that's a great thing. This is just another plug into the personnel matrix so that we can have more officers on the road at any given time.”
Hansen said this will help the department cut down on overtime, provide increased services to residents and give officers a better work-life balance.
Hansen said officers are doing much more with less. He said each year, the department responds to about 30,000 service calls and that the nature of those calls has intensified over the years. Hansen said that when he joined the force in the late 90s, it had 48 officers, and he wants to get close to that number again.
"It's a huge community, inner-ring suburb, but over 20,000 residents and there are a myriad of needs that they have,” said Mayor Annette Blackwell.
Blackwell said that while officers handle misdemeanors and more serious crimes, they also serve as family counselors and step in before situations take a turn.
“Probably a third of my households are single female head of households- one of two children, and so sometimes having the police there to mediate small issues for our youth, for our families, is crucial,” Blackwell said. "They're there to help. They're here to make a difference. These are officers that they know. These are officers they trust.”
Blackwell said that with the city being released from a financial emergency in 2020, she and other leaders will remain aggressive in seeking grants and other opportunities.
“We continue to look for partners in helping us fill the holes in our in our budget… general fund balance. I want to maintain that,” Blackwell said.
The city’s goal is to have the two new police officers hired by the end of the year, trained, and on the streets by spring 2025.
“The culture that we create and cultivate- those things are important to me,” Blackwell said. “And that's important in the area of recruitment, retention and attraction."
Smith likes the direction the city is going.
“Sometimes you have to make baby steps- crawl before you can walk,” Smith said.
Other agencies in our area also received the grant. Details are in the photo posted below.
