The Law Enforcement Consolidation Task Force met Thursday to discuss the final study from Springstead.
Springsted, the company that examined the city’s potential for consolidating city and county law enforcement, presented its final report to commissioners. Marshall Miller, task force member, said the group will meet in January and wrap things up.
“We’re going to meet in January and formalize our conclusions and recommendation and forward them to the governing bodies,” Miller said. “It’ll probably be after Jan. 20.”
The Springstead study presented on Thursday was a full consolidation study of both law enforcement bodies in Emporia. The final report on Thursday exposed planning around the Riley County model, Miller said. Riley County is the only county in Kansas to have a completely consolidated police department. Voters approved the move in 1972 and the new department went into action in 1974. And one reason it happened fairly smoothly, former police director Al Johnson said in a June 2007 task force meeting, is that neither the police chief nor the sheriff opposed it.
“We’ll make conclusions on that and forward them to the governing bodies,” Miller said.