Page 22 - 2018 Annual Report
P. 22
Staffing
Enhancements
Twenty-four officers added Parking Enforcement adds
squad focused on downtown
The City Council boosted funding for the
department to hire 24 additional officers when Downtown Kansas City’s booming growth
the fiscal year began in May 2018. City leaders drew more residents, businesses and visitors,
said they hoped the additional officers could and most of those people had cars to go along
help reduce violent crime in the city, which with them.
indeed went down by 6 percent from 2017 (see
p. 31). What did not grow was the number of
available parking spaces.
The new officers also allowed Chief Richard
Smith to assign an additional Community “We’ve heard from several downtown
Interaction Officer to all six patrol divisions to business owners recently that their customers
work proactively with neighborhoods (see p. 15 can’t park at their businesses because
for more information). downtown residents have overstayed their time
Word of the additional positions in parking spots,” Chief Richard Smith wrote
on his blog. “We’ve heard from downtown
got out, and more than 2,000 residents that people attending special events
have taken up their parking spots. And we’ve
people applied for a job at KCPD heard from people attending downtown events
in 2018. that they can’t find a place to park.”
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