At the last Skagway Borough Assembly meeting, consultants presented their audit of the Skagway Police Department.
Ron Moser, the lead police consultant for the Mc Grath consulting group, started with some good news. Skagway has a low crime rate. In the five years included in the presentation, there were no homicides, and only two instances of violent crime.Most crimes recorded were nonviolent theft: larceny theft, 33 cases in five years, and four cases of vehicle theft in the same period. That’s it.
The bad news is how overworked the police force is. There are four officers, for a town that hosts tens of thousands of tourists on a busy day. Due to the remoteness of the town, the department cannot rely on assistance from nearby communities.
Moser’s immediate recommendation was to hire two additional officers. This would allow the department to have at least one officer on duty every hour of every day of the year. Currently, the department has only officers on standby at certain times, when they stay at home but are ready to respond.
The consultants recommended hiring safety officers to take on certain tasks like assisting with school crossings, and to have resident volunteers in Dyea to compensate for the long response time in the remote area.
Other priorities are to address the 911 outages, and to replace the radios with more modern ones. Lower on the list are increasing community engagement by having officers visit the school, meet with seasonal workers, and setting up a monthly “coffee time with the chief.”
Skagway Assembly Member Dan Henry expressed frustration with the presentation. He said all the issues with the department are well known, and that money could fix most of them. He brought up the municipality’s limited resources, and voiced doubt that the municipality was spending its funds wisely by hiring a consulting firm to provide a wish list for the department.
During discussion, all assembly members agreed that hiring an additional officer should be the number one priority.
