Fairhope Citizens Advisory Committee

Miami Center Fairhope Police Chief recruiting citizens to advise department.

by Bill Riales

Published: Mon, October 12, 2009 - 8:44 pm CST Last Updated: Mon, October 12, 2009 - 9:08 pm CST

FAIRHOPE, Alabama - Fairhope Police Chief Bill Press is residents there to join a Citizen's Advisory Committee. He says the CAC could serve any number of purposes but the most important is to create an open forum for citizens.
"That's number one," he says. "Number two, it would bring more transparency to the police department. Number three, it would allow them to bring issues and concerns to the department and number four, it would allow them to see how a police department virtually runs."
Thirty people attended the first CAC meeting last month. Since then the Chief says he's received a lot of interest from others. Already, inquiries about certain police department policies have resulted in action.
"We've already received inquiries about our chase policy, which I'm already in the process of changing," said Press. "It's going to be far more restrictive." Press said the new chase policy will go into effect in the coming week.
He says there will be many other issues for the CAC to discuss. "Our biggest concern here in Fairhope as one may guess is traffic. And we'll be adressing that issue as well--those types of issues. Maybe we'll be setting up a crime watch in an area."
Press brought the idea of a Citizen's Advisory Committee from Miami where he worked for the Miami-Dade Police Department for many years. In a city of 2.4 million, that department encompassed nine districts each with an active CAC.
"Generally speaking," He says, "they've resolved a lot of questions. Policy decisions have been changed because of that, and if they can work in an agency that size they have the same possibility here.
The next CAC meeting is set for Tuesday October 13th at 6PM at the James P. Nix Center in Fairhope.

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