West Liberty Police Chief Seeks Funding for New Cruiser
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West Liberty Police Chief Michael Lough requested funding from the Ohio County Commission to purchase a new police cruiser due to a recent uptick in different criminal activities in the area.
Lough presented recent crime statistics in West Liberty to the commission at Tuesday night's meeting. He highlighted that 41 total law enforcement interactions had taken place in February, with 25 of these interactions being traffic stops that resulted in 21 citations.
In comparison, there was a smaller number of law enforcement interactions in the town during Dec. 2023 and Jan. 2024, with 33 and 21 total law enforcement interactions for these months, respectively.
"What’s been going on lately here is we’ve had kind of an uptick in a lot of different criminal activities that are going on in the small town of West Liberty," explained Lough. "Despite my efforts, the college kids are trying to turn it into a mini-Morgantown. I’m trying to do what I can with what we have."
The West Liberty police department has had recent personnel additions to the squad. Lough explained they have recently hired a former Wheeling Police Department officer and a former West Liberty University Police Department officer.
While the department has hired more staff to counter the uptick in crime, Lough noted a "deficiency" has arisen from only having one patrol vehicle. He explained that while he and another officer are patrolling together, they are "located to only one area."
Lough added they were "extremely grateful" for their first cruiser purchased for the department by the commission, but the single vehicle was not enough to police the town.
"We're trying to make do with that one vehicle, but it's going to make things difficult to have two guys in one vehicle working at a time or playing musical cars for a lack of a better term," he said.
Lough noted having only one vehicle would become an even greater issue when the force begins doing seat-belt checkpoints on the stretch of Van Meter Way leading to West Liberty University. A secondary vehicle would be needed "just for lights and officer safety," according to Lough, so officers can check drivers coming the north and south.
Lough presented the commission with two fully equipped and certified police cruisers he had found for sale at less than $10,000 each. While Lough had found "plenty of grants" to get the vehicles equipped with radars, laptops and safety equipment, the issue was he could not find any grant funding that would provide solely for a cruiser.
"A lot of the grants I'm running into are brick and mortar," noted Lough. "They'd be more than happy to help us with up to 35% of the cost of a new building. Unfortunately, they can't really bend the rules for a couple thousand for a cruiser."
Lough requested that "if there was money in the budget" the commission allot funding for the police force to get a second cruiser due to the "drastic uptick" in crime in the area over the past few months.
Commissioner Zach Abraham said Lough could "probably" use American Rescue Plan funding to provide for the new vehicle.
Lough explained he was unsure if the police department could use ARPA funds directly, as he did not know whether ARPA money in the town's account had to remain separate from the police department's account.
Abraham said he thought the police car was an allowable expense and County Administrator Randy Russell could help confirm that for Lough.
"The police cruiser might be a better use for it anyway," added Abraham.