The Hollister City Council approved a resolution Monday to revive a police reserve unit disbanded a few years ago due to budget cuts.
“I think it would help us bolster officer safety, cover costs during some of our operations, provide a pool of qualified proven candidates for future police officer positions,” said Police Chief David Westrick. “And I’m requesting 10 officers in this initial reserve unit.”
The cost of the resolution approved Monday would appropriate $21,000 for new uniforms, body armor and firearms.
The chief said he wanted to bolster numbers in the department to give “breathing room” for patrol officers.
“If it’s within your bandwidth, then yeah – green light, absolutely,” said Councilman Victor Gomez.
Councilman Ray Friend wondered how many people the chief expected to hire for the reserve force.
“I don’t know exactly. I do know I have had a lot of inquiries about it,” Westrick said. “I certainly think there is a large pool right now who are qualified to be reserve officers, especially locally.”
He added that the move would result in savings because it would amount to around half the cost of overtime for regular officers.
“It might be a few years to do that, but in the long run, we would be actually ahead of the game,” he said.
Mayor Ignacio Velazquez thanked the chief for his “creativity” and “vision” for bringing up the idea.
“It’s a great way to bring young people and train them, put them into high-paying careers,” he said.
The benefit of the reserve officers could help contain costs of providing safety officers for events, Westrick said. In 2008, the Hollister Motorcycle Rally was canceled because of the skyrocketing cost of providing safety officers for the rally.
“It’s very budget friendly. It also helps us in the future because they have to go through the same process of hiring as a regular police officer,” he said.
He said reserve officers in California are allowed to work within a police car with another officer. And if they are certified, they could serve like any other officer.
The cost of hiring the new officers would come out of the police budget and would not affect the city’s general fund, he said.
“With reserve officers in concert with our police officers, it allows us to do a little bit more with a little bit less money,” he said.
In other matters:
-The council approved a resolution to join a “feasibility study” to examine the cost of the Community Choice Aggregation program that allows local governments to control energy sources. The resolution would allow the study to collect load data from energy consumers in the city from Pacific Gas & Electric for the purpose of the study. The county and San Juan also have approved similar studies.
– Council members approved a contract with the City of Hollister and Service Employees International Union Local 521 through summer of 2015, as well as a contract with a professional services group to engage with the union in continuing labor negotiations.
– The city was given the green light to purchase property for $102,000 along San Benito Street to make way for a new Community Housing Improvement Systems and Planning Association home that would be built by local students to learn the construction trade. Another home along San Benito Street built by CHISPA was completed in September.
