The City of Trenton heard from Sheriff Bobby Schultz, decided on eight candidates to interview for its public safety chief position, decided on locations for new stop signs in the southwest section and set the pay for its new fire officer.
City commissioner began the meeting by narrowing down the 25 applicants for its public safety chief position.
The commission will interview eight candidates: Gary Boothby, Matthew Campisi, James Durkin, Brian Frayer, Kendrielle Gent, KC Presha Malcolm, Marc Micale and Paul Valentino.
Whoever receives the position will have to live within 15 miles of the city.
While the commissioners’ votes were being tallied, they heard from Sheriff Schultz regarding the Sheriff’s Office’s policing in the City of Trenton, how to slow down speeding and the city’s unused police vehicles.
Schultz said he has not spoken to City Manager Brittany Mills regarding ATV issues, but the Sheriff’s Office has not received complaints regarding ATVs recently. He said deputies had made an arrest and written several tickets and have not seen a problem recently.
Schultz said GCSO is working hard on narcotics issues in the City of Trenton.
“I don’t care who hears it, if you’re doing it in Gilchrist County, and for our purpose tonight, the City of Trenton: Stop,” he said. “Because we will kick your door in at two o’clock in the morning, like we’ve been doing, and you’ll go to jail.”
He said he had heard complaints about speeding in the southwest quadrant.
Schultz said deputies routinely patrol each quadrant of the city. He said the patrols are not on regular intervals because they do not want speeders and criminals to know when they are going to be in each quadrant.
Schultz said he had heard complaints that deputies had not been patrolling in some areas, but he said he can show that there have been deputies patrolling each quadrant based on GPS data from deputies’ vehicles.
Schultz told the city commission that he would endorse using speed bumps to deter speeding.
“Nothing says ‘I won’t speed’ like having to fix a transmission after hitting one of those things doing about 40 miles an hour,” he said.
Schultz also asked the board to reconsider an earlier decision to wait until a new public safety chief was hired before deciding whether to give unused police vehicles to GCSO.
Schultz told the commission, based on his experience, the city is no closer than three months away from completing the hiring process.
He asked for two vehicles and the equipment they contain, such as radar equipment.
He said the city is currently having to pay insurance for those vehicles despite not being used currently.
He said all it would take is a 30 minute call to USDA to transfer the vehicles that were bought on the USDA grant and that they can be transferred to a law enforcement agency.
“To cars and a little bit of equipment to make the county safer, it’s going to make my life a little easier, and my deputies, and making the citizens a little bit safer,” Schultz said.
He acknowledged and thanked the commission for giving GCSO two radar units, two AR-15s and two vests.
He said response times in Trenton are not as low as they were with Trenton Public Safety, but they are comparable. Schultz said there were two incidents with “atrocious” response times, but that had been handled and will not happen again.
Trenton sent out 125 letters asking citizens in the southwest quadrant what actions they would like the city to take to combat speeding in the area.
The city received 38 responses: 13 suggested speed humps and stop signs, two suggested only speed humps, eight suggested only stop signs and 15 did not support any installation at this time.
Mayor Robbi Coarsey Avery suggested starting with stop signs, and Commissioner Randy Rutter said the city should not start placing speed humps until roads had been repaved.
Rutter made a motion to place four-way stops at SW 2nd Street and SW 5th Avenue and at SW 1st Street and SW 3rd Avenue.
Commissioner Lucy Coleman seconded the motion and the motion passed with a 4-0 vote.
The commission also set the monthly pay for new Volunteer Fire Chief Craig Ruede.
The position was advertised with a monthly pay of $500 to $800.
Rutter made a motion to set the pay at $800 per month.
Coleman seconded the motion, which passed with a 4-0 vote.
The pay will be effective from Ruede’s date of hire.