By Linda Kor Snowflake-Taylor Police Chief Bobby Martin provided an update for the Snowflake Council on the work done by the department from July 2019 to July 2020. He noted that with the pandemic traffic enforcement became limited. “Unless it was an egregious violation, we instructed our staff to try to get compliance by flashing their lights and trying to get people to slow down rather than make contact with them.” He noted that as such, it negated the ordinance passed by council last year regarding cell phone usage while driving. As such, it skewed statistics on the effectiveness of that ordinance throughout the year. “We recently rescinded that order as far as limiting contact with the community regarding traffic enforcement so it should be back to business as usual, at least for the time being.” Martin noted that on May 11, the consolidation of dispatch services was completed with Show Low Police Department. “That has come with its own growing pains. One of those things is how we report our criminal statistics to the federal government.” He stated that changes include the reporting on the Uniform Crime Reporting Statistics, which are eight field statistics that must be reported to the federal government each month in order to obtain certain funding. As of Jan. 1, that will change to 52 field statistics per month and has required modifications in reporting by officers for their cases. “This will be a growing pain for every agency of the state that wants federal funding,” he noted. Martin also spoke about a collaborative data base program that the department is taking part in that allows officers to enter a name on a tablet and it accesses the database of every policing agency in the area including the Apache County Sheriff’s Office, St. Johns, Show Low and Pinetop-Lakeside police departments. The tablet also allows the officers to be tracked in the event of an incident where an officer is not responding or missing. He also noted that later this year, a program will be accessible to the public called a “heat map,” which is a colored map of the jurisdiction with red and green dots, that show little pockets in the community with the highest crime rate. “We can break that down to what kind of crime we want to see. Our biggest hot spot now for thefts is Walmart,” stated Martin, adding that the tool also helps with crash data, “where the most frequent crashes are occurring to be able to do additional traffic enforcement.” The department is currently working on its accreditation through ALEAP (Arizona Law Enforcement Accreditation Program). “This program is recognized on the federal level and will be best practices for the State of Arizona.” The evidence room has been updated and each item entered into evidence is now tracked with a bar code in the department’s computer system. The department was also able to hire Brian Carpenter as a part time animal control officer for the weekends. “Our goals for this year include receiving the ALEAP accreditation and increase our crime awareness and give those stats out to the community so they have a better understanding of what’s going on within our town. Martin noted that the department is also looking at restarting the citizens police academy. “It’s always been kind of hit-and-miss throughout the years. We got a lot of interest in it and only 10 people show up to it. So we’re going to try to do a modified version of it that’s not so long.” As far as statistics for the fiscal year, total incidents have gone down this fiscal year and, according to Martin, is due to limited traffic enforcement. Felony arrests have remained steady at 159 and the biggest increase was a 38 percent increase of misdemeanor arrests at 375. “One of the reasons for that is as of January of this year they put the jail district tax in place so we are no longer paying for misdemeanor arrests to be made, so we went from issuing a lot of citations to now just putting those people in jail, at least for 24 hours until they can see a judge. The limitations have been lifted from us so we can go back to doing business as we do.” Assaults and arrests have remained steady and burglaries are down, which Martin credited to people not leaving their houses during the pandemic for burglars to come in. There was a decrease in collisions also due to the pandemic and schools being closed. Martin noted that this year there will be an increase in traffic stops with a goal of 3,000 by June 30, which would double last year’s stops at 1,500. Librarian Ella McAdams addressed the council regarding the library. “We’ve seen an uptick in the use of the library. We’ve had 40 new library cards in the last month, which is really good for us. We’ve circulated 2,962 books and materials last month. We served 1,346 patrons and just today had 129 people walk through my door.” She noted that the Friends of the Library is having a used book sale on Saturday, Sept. 19, in the library parking lot. In other business, the council: * Approved the amendment to the Model City Tax Code. * Approved the purchase of real property from Taylor Snowflake Development, LLC. * Approved the purchase of real property from the Silver Creek Flood Control District. * Approved the abandonment of subdivision plat and town roadway for Juniper Crest Phase I. * Approved a special use permit for parcel No. 202-17-023L to construct a second residence. * Approved for first reading an ordinance to rezone parcel No. 202-17-063P from R-1A to R-21, by title only. * Approved a ground lease with Smith Bagley, Inc. * Approved a resolution adopting the results of the primary election held on Aug. 4.
