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By Carol Arnett

“These would be certified police officers and would handle their own arrests,” Karabas said.

Councilman John Grib said “you have 100% of my support on this. I think this is a great idea.” Grib noted that several years ago, he worked for the city as a park officer.

Councilman Keith Schildroth asked what would happen in the dead of winter, when the parks were not in much use. “Would they go to the recreation centers?” he asked.

Karabas responded that the police would go to the centers. “We sometimes have problems with kids congregating in front of the centers,” he said. “People don’t always respond to rangers.”

In an interview after the meeting, Veach said that they would like to begin with two part-time positions of 32 hours per week. However, he said, they may hire more than two people to split the positions, since the work would be mostly on weekends, and many candidates may not want to work all weekend.

He said they would be looking for certified police officers, possibly officers that have retired from full-time work.

Veach said that these officers would be under the Parks and Recreation department, and the department would be asking for funds for them in next year’s budget. The city’s fiscal year ends on November 30.

The officers would go where needed, Veach said. If there were a tournament or concert, they would be available. Otherwise, they would go from park to park as needed. The park rangers could request them as needed.

The number of rangers would remain the same, Veach said.

At the meeting, Mayor Tom Schneider said that he supported the proposal for park police.  “We can start with two and this could be expanded in the future to four position,” Schneider said. Schneider said that they could prevent the loss of patronage of the parks.

“We have a beautiful park system,” Schneider said, “and we don’t want anyone to take that away from the residents.”