Kalispell plans to add new police officers

Kalispell is planning to add two new officers to the police department with the goal of gaining ground on an uptick in crime in the city.

At Monday’s City Council work session, the council agreed to move forward with a request from the Kalispell Police Department to fund a pair of new officers through the general fund reserves. Kalispell City Manager Doug Russell said the funding measure, which would require council action to pass, would be continued into the foreseeable future.

The request came after the department was denied a grant that would have covered the additional salaries for three years, with the condition that one officer be kept for at least one year after the grant expired.

According to Chief Roger Nasset’s report to council on Wednesday, crime calls through September have risen from 22,077 in 2012 to 26,318 in 2016, increasing by an average of about 1,060 calls per year.

Nasset said crime rates really turned up after the Great Recession in 2008. Since that time the department has actually lost a few full-time employees.

The police department currently has 38 officers. Nasset said the goal is to keep four officers on duty at any given time, but the increasing dispatch calls have created personnel issues.

Nasset said Kalispell presents some of its own challenges for officers, including a growing residential and commercial area, as well as its natural landscape.

“Kalispell is not geographically the easiest place to patrol,” Nasset said. “It’s broken up by rivers and pockets, outside the normal barriers of city limits.”

One of the officers requested in the police department’s July application was an officer to be trained for a K-9 unit that Nasset hopes to add to the force. While that officer funding did not come through, the city had set aside enough funds to pay for the dog.

By descending order, the most occurring crimes in Kalispell are drug and alcohol related, theft, mental health related, traffic accidents, a growing transient population and 911 hang-ups, according to Nasset’s report. He said the top three are often related, and a K-9 unit would help alleviate those numbers.

These crimes, increasing at their current rate, illustrate one of the largest crime rises in the state, Nasset said.

“Other communities are pretty tight too, but I can’t think of any except Yellowstone County that’s as bad as we are,” Nasset said.

COUNCIL MEMBER Phil Guiffrida supported the request, but added that two more officers might not be enough to make a dent in the crime rate.

“We still don’t have a jail being built, still having issues with the county,” Guiffrida said. Guiffrida said the addition of officers could, however, help manage the crime while the county continues to manage the jail situation.

Nasset said that without a place to lock criminals up, offenders have grown more confident. But even without the added punishment of jail time, he said the department can’t let offenders off the hook.

“They tell us, ‘Write me a ticket, you can’t take me to jail.’ They are entitled right now. With everything that’s going on, that does not stop our necessity to do our job,” he said.

Residents in attendance said they felt a similar type of helplessness in the neighborhoods. Nathan Hunt, who lives on the east side, said he had $1,600 worth of property stolen from his home. He reported the theft, but was told about the backlog of thefts yet to be investigated and had little hope in getting the items back.

Hunt, a five-year resident of Kalispell, said he’s more than willing to see his taxes go toward additional officers.

“Frankly, I’d give you guys the $1,600 just to be able to figure out what happened to my stuff,” he said.

Sylvia Owen, another Kalispell resident, said she had just assembled a new community group, Friends of Flathead Law Enforcement, to show the locals’ gratitude for police.

“We want to send them thank you cards this year,” she said. “We want to say thanks as well to the council for recognizing the need and doing something about it.”

After speaking with Russell about the impact on the general fund, the council decided to use general fund reserves to cover the cost of the new officers. Russell said he expects the new salaries to be around $70,000 a year per officer.

“We have to spend wisely, that doesn’t mean not spending it,” Mayor Mark Johnson said. “I’m looking at what we have for growth. I see revenue coming, the general fund revenue on the way, but the duty of loyalty we owe to our officers as well.”

Russell said he would work with the finance department get salary allocations in place as the council looks to make the actions in the coming months.

Reporter Seaborn Larson may be reached at 758-4441 or by email at slarson@dailyinterlake.com.