Special police patrols downtown may be eliminated
By Jason Aubry, Story Created: Sep 26, 2013 at 5:26 PM EDT
Story Updated: Sep 26, 2013 at 5:40 PM EDT
SOUTH BEND, Ind. -- The city of South Bend is cutting $150,000 from its budget by eliminating the special police patrols in downtown. Downtown business owners don't want the city to get rid of the foot and bike patrols.
South Bend Common Council President Derek Dieter says the downtown foot and bike patrols are the best use of overtime hours to solve a problem that he has ever seen.
Now, with that solution in jeopardy, he is letting everyone know the administration's plans.
Having police officers on foot and on bikes has worked out well for revitalizing South Bend's downtown image.
"It's been a fantastic thing for the area, a tremendous boost for the businesses," said Dieter.
It has helped businesses like Idle Hours Book Shop; which has been downtown for more than a decade.
"Even just the work they've done so far, you can see an improvement in the downtown area," said Josi Doyle, owner of Idle Hours Book Shop.
But now the city administration is looking to save some money on the police budget and is looking to cut out the foot and bike patrols starting next year.
"When I asked the Chief Teachman and Mark Neal, they confirmed that there will not be any more of those patrols," said Dieter.
That didn't sit well with many of the downtown business owners.
"We like the police presence downtown. It made everybody feel more safe and secure," said Doyle.
Phil Schreiber the owner of Chicory Cafe understands the administration's desire to save a few bucks, even if he doesn't fully agree with the decision.
"Having the presence downtown is nice. It's important. If it doesn't work, they take it out of the budget, and something happens, we'll see it back in the budget and we'll see that again," said Schreiber.
That's something Dieter is trying to avoid having to do altogether.
"I'm not voting for the budget because that's one of the reasons. This patrol needs to continue," said Dieter.
Dieter plans to retire from the police department early next year.
He says there will still be a beat car that will drive through the area, but it won't be able to service this part of town like the bikes and foot patrols can.
Mayor says special downtown patrols won't end
September 27, 2013
SOUTH BEND, Ind. -- Thursday South Bend Common Council President Derek Dieter said he learned the police department's downtown foot and bike patrols would be ending. Mayor Pete Buttigieg says that isn't true and that Dieter misunderstood what was said.
Common Council President Derek Dieter told ABC57 he found out at a budget hearing that the downtown foot and bike patrols were going to be eliminated from the city budget.
"When I asked Chief Teachman and Mark Neal, they confirmed that there will not be any more of those patrols," said Dieter.
Friday, the mayor told ABC57 Dieter is blowing things out of proportion.
"Derek is very passionate about downtown patrols. He's very involved in them, but I think he may have overreacted to what's ultimately an accounting artifact. We're not proposing eliminating supplemental patrols," said Mayor Pete Buttigieg.
But fellow South Bend Common Council member Karen White was sitting next to South Bend Police Chief Ron Teachman at the meeting, and she recalls the chief being very clear:
"Some of the areas that the chief had indicated would be, that the substation for downtown would be closed, and also the foot patrol would be eliminated," said White.
The question remains if the mayor is simply splitting hairs.
He says the city wants to keep supplemental overtime patrols but he won't confirm they'll work downtown.
"I think that we are going to continue to leave our options open, to make sure that we can direct officers where they are needed," said Buttigieg.
If the chief doesn't think they are needed downtown, they'll be sent somewhere else.
"We are going to continue to send officers where they are needed including overtime. We're just making sure that we have a flexible way of doing that in our budget," said Buttigieg.
We reached out to both Chief Teachman and Mark Neal. Only Neal called us back.
He confirmed Teachman wants to eliminate the line item in the budget for the foot patrol, which holds funds for overtime patrols.
But he also said the city has other resources the chief could use to maintain a police presence downtown, like a patrol car beat.