Beefing up Oconee’s public safety spending

Sheriff Mike Crenshaw sat in the audience at Monday’s meeting of Oconee school trustees and heard strong comment from members of the public that they prefer spending to assign more school resource officers instead of implementing a separate program, in which certain volunteer school workers would be trained to handle firearms. And Edda Cammick, council chairwoman, talked during last night’s budget meeting about funding six more school resource officers and five additional fire fighters. Crenshaw told the council: “The overwhelming response from citizens is that we would rather have an SRO in our school….” The council’s budget committee also heard the school district’s Steve Hanvey say that two extra SROs, to be paid for by the public schools, are included in the proposed school district budget for the next year. Sheriff Crenshaw also advocates hiring up to three additional regular patrol officers. In a statement to 101.7/WGOG NEWS, he said, “Additional retail establishments, along with the need to have a law enforcement presence at the many public events in our county, concerns me. The need for uniform patrol deputies equals the need for SROs. I also think we could further address the issue with litter with an additional deputy dedicated to this unit. I could then have one deputy working inmates every day to pick up litter and the other working on litter enforcement. Currently, one deputy does both.”