Four officers and two firefighters were sworn in at Tuesday’s village board meeting. The four new officers are set to replace several vacancies at the Skokie Police Department.
“This is an evening of celebration, but it takes a lot of work to bring in six new hires,” said Skokie Mayor George Van Dusen.
The four new officers weren’t alone on Tuesday night. Family and friends were also present and applauded the achievement.
“They’ll be replacing existing vacancies, go through various training at the police academy,” said Police Chief Anthony Scarpelli. “They’ll be doing field training, too, with veteran officers, and should be able to ride solo in seven months.”
Matt Dickinson, Leo Feldman, Patrick Howe and Jaclyn Roden will all be “riding solo” following the completion of their training.
Meanwhile, the fire department added two new firefighters to their team on Tuesday. Sworn in at the village board meeting were Peter Arreguin and Christopher Johnson.
Talks of hiring additional officers –
Several Caucus Party trustee candidates have said that the village is already in the works to hire additional officers.
Trustee candidate Ilonka Ulrich said she is “very in favor of getting more officers,” but added that other avenues should also be explored. She suggested the use of satellite locations – such as the old police station at 8350 Laramie Ave. – to increase police presence throughout the village.
"I think using the old police station as a satellite location would be a good idea," Ulrich said. "I also think it would be a great idea to cut in some areas to hire more police officers - or juggling new technology to make [their hiring] less expensive.”
Other candidates such as Ralph Klein and Karen Gray-Keeler also said plans are in the works to hire additional officers.
In the meantime, Skokie will have four fresh faces patrolling the streets soon. Crime has been down overall over the last five years by at least 5 percent, according to the latest figures from the Skokie Police Department’s annual report.
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If the latter is so, then why haven't they publicly said so and why has it not been in the recent new budget? I suspect that the hiring of new additional officers is not imminent while the increased safety of citizens of Skokie demands it. If so, it also demonstrates Klein and Ulrich are not showing proactive solutions to the budgetary problems involved in hiring additional officers. Both candidates show little understanding of the issue of safety in Skokie. Ulrich seems to be suggesting things that others have already made and sound good but are light on specifics. Satellite police stations is a bad idea. The old Skokie police station is outdated and very costly to refurbish to be useful. Satellite stations serve little police functions other than to be a visible presence in a small radius, not provide better policing. Policing today is high tech and relies on mobility, not brick and mortar presence. Give the police useful support they need and not more window dressing to feed the fears of the community. Klein and Ulrich need a great deal of learning about safety issues to be effective trustees. I would put my trust in those already knowledgeable