City officials discuss public safety after levy, bond failure
City officials spent the last few years discussing public safety needs and challenges in the community.
In 2021, they created a crime task force to look at those needs and develop recommendations.
That task force met for months and among their recommendations were to ask for a public safety levy.
City staff and commissioners then spent months developing the details for a levy and added infrastructure needs with a public safety bond.
They spent the bulk of this year attempting to educate the public about those public safety needs and challenges ahead of the Nov. 7 vote on the levy and bond, both of which failed.
The vote on the levy was 5,620 in favor and 9,095 opposed.
The vote on the bond was 6,726 in favor and 7,925 opposed.
During their Dec. 5 work session, staff and City Commissioners discussed the failures.
City Manager said that though the failure stung, staff walked away with a better understanding of the challenges each department was facing.
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He said the city will maintain the Safety in the Falls website to continue their attempt to educate the public on safety challenges and needs.
Doyon said city staff intends to build on this year’s education effort and apply it to any future levy ask.
He said that all departments involved, fire, police, legal and Municipal Court, have been regrouping and they’ll have an internal debrief.
Doyon said that department heads are evaluating how to be efficient with the resources they have.
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He said that he’s not anticipating any immediate changes, but there will be changes and reprioritization of resources since the city has to be able to respond to immediate needs.
“Something has to give,” Doyon said, until the city is able to address some of their public safety deficiencies.
Doyon told commissioners that the community conversation over the levy and its subsequent failure has already raised concern about employee retention.
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The city conducts exit interviews with employees and some public safety employees have said they feel a lack of support for their work. He said the community response to the levy ask could also impact their current retention efforts for firefighters, police officers and lawyers, when they’re already short staffed in many areas.
Doyon said that the day after the election, he sent an email to fire, police, legal and court employees asking them not to take the vote personally and that they were needed.
The “need and the conversation isn’t going away,” Doyon said. “This issue of public safety in the community has been a priority of every city commission I have worked with since 2008.”
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He said if public safety isn’t a priority, the community feels the residual impact.
Doyon said that the “timing was terrible” in terms of the county’s public safety levy passage in 2022, the library levy passing over the summer, the tax appraisals from the Montana Department of Revenue and current economic conditions.
He said those factors were largely outside the city’s control and based on community discussions, the public appears to be entirely unaware of the challenges facing public safety departments.
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He said there’s an “incredible disconnect” between the discussion the city’s bene having on public safety and the public.
Doyon said that he was “shocked at the lack of awareness that this had been a perpetual issue before the commission for years and years.”
Mayor Bob Kelly said that at the heart of the issue is needing better citizen awareness of the realities of city resources, but also recognizing that’s in conflict with the limited resources of taxpayers themselves.
Kelly said the city would learn from the levy failure, go forward and do the best they can.
He said he wished the next commission the best of luck to provide public safety services that the city needs now but will need more in the future.
