Atlanta City Council wants to use the city’s special police program to fill Atlanta’s parks with retired officers.
The Police Recapture Program lets the city rehire retired Atlanta police officers at their regular salaries without taxpayers funding their benefits. The council passed a resolution Monday to expand the program’s reach for patrol duty in the city’s parks and park properties.
City Councilman Michael Julian Bond, who sponsored the resolution, said a police officer’s presence in the parks will reduce criminal activity in the city.
“We do need to get marching down the road to make sure that we have individuals assigned either to the facilities or in the vicinity of our parks to deter criminal activity or to respond to criminal activity more readily,” Bond said.
The council spent several minutes discussing how to fund the plan. Bond initially proposed use of the city’s Parks Improvement Fund, but Councilwomen Marci Collier Overstreet and Natalyn Archibong opposed that idea.
Councilwoman Joyce Sheperd also said the Department of Parks and Recreation did not want to use its funds for police patrol services. City attorney Amber Robinson explained that the park department’s funds could only pay officers for services in park facilities and not the park overall.
Ultimately, the council agreed to fund the patrols with general funds from the budget for the fiscal year that begins in July.
The council also plans to draft and pass a resolution requesting the Department of Parks and Recreation and the Atlanta Police Department to complete a study to determine how many retired officers are needed to patrol Atlanta’s parks.
“Whatever we do, I’m hoping that we do it this year,” Councilwoman Cleta Winslow said. “I want us to be really serious about this.”
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