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OPINIONS
Editorial: Aggressive approach to grants aids police agencies
Brandon Dial is sworn in as a police officer at City Hall on Thursday in Huntington.
Purchase this photoThe two biggest police agencies in Cabell County seem to be turning up the heat not only on crime, but on going after resources that will help them in battling drugs, robberies and other criminal offenses.
Word came recently that the Huntington Police Department and the Cabell County Sheriff's Department will share a $562,398 federal stimulus grant.
The Huntington department will use its share, $390,000, to hire another police officer, purchase five police cruisers, continue its bicycle patrol and purchase computer equipment that will allow residents to report certain crimes at the department's new field office at the corner of Hal Greer Boulevard and 10th Avenue. The sheriff's department will use its portion, $172,398, to purchase a new cruiser, computers and equipment for its crime scene investigation, road patrol and SWAT team units.
Both agencies are going after more, however. Together they have sought about $2.5 million in state and federal grants this year, and could be seeking an additional $665,000.
Huntington Police Capt. Hank Dial said the $1.7 million in grant applications sought by his department so far this year is the most he recalls during his 18 years with the agency. In saying that Police Chief Skip Holbrook and other command staff have made seeking grants a bigger priority, Dial makes a good point: The money being sought by the department is taxpayer money, and Huntington and Cabell County should press hard to obtain their share rather than simply letting it go to other communities.
Sheriff Tom McComas said he recently sent a deputy to a grant-writing in Lexington to improve his department's grant opportunities, a move that he said has yielded a number of grant-application ideas.
There's no question that both departments have to struggle with local budgetary constraints to get sufficient resources.
In Huntington's case in particular, financial crises a few years ago stripped the department of a sizable part of its manpower, dropping the department's number of officers below 90. Whether coincidental or not, an increase in crime -- drug activity in particular -- began at about the same time.
The department now has 94 officers, about a half-dozen more than it had the year before. With the City Council's commitment to hire more officers using an increase in the user fee it charges people who work in Huntington, combined with another hoped-for grant that would allow hiring four more officers and word of the grant announced last week, the department could reach a staffing level of 106 officers. That would put it close to what it had before budget cuts pared it down far too much.
That's welcome news. Almost everyone agrees that crime is a major issue in the Huntington area, and having stronger law enforcement units -- both at the city and county levels -- will help bolster recent strides made in combating it.
