Instead of closing the department, city officials said Officer Charley McAnally will stay on as the city's lone police officer. Two other positions in the department will be eliminated: a community service officer whose job includes animal-control duties and an administrative clerk.
Those employees will be laid off at the end of this month, City Clerk Steven Cunningham said.
At a Monday council work session, Deputy Mayor Lance Wilson argued that the city should shutter the police department until it had a reliable source of funds to pay for police services. The department has the largest budget among city departments. Wilson said Thursday it appeared that cutting two positions from the department might save the city nearly as much as shuttering the department would have.
The new make-up means McAnally will write tickets for city code violations such as junk violations and pick up loose or nuisance animals, in addition to his police duties, Wilson said.
But it will let the city keep a police presence. City residents on Monday protested closing the department, saying they did not want to rely solely on Alaska State Trooper response. The decision to disband the department may be temporarily off the table, Wilson said, but it doesn't solve the broader issue of needing a reliable source of funds to pay for it. The council will look at the issue again next month as the city begins fiscal 2011 budget deliberations.
"We've still got to look at the long-term solution. The option of shutting the police department down is not completely off the table," Wilson said.
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