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Albany gang unit likely

• The City of Albany explores creating its own gang prevention unit.

Susan McCord

ALBANY — With a nearly full complement of officers and a proposed $14.9 million budget, the Albany Police Department needs only the addition of personnel dedicated to stopping gang activity, city officials said Monday.

Up from $13.9 million a year ago, the department’s proposed budget reflects a fully-staffed uniform department, the addition of a public information officer and two HEAT officers’ salaries, and increased operating expenses, largely gas, up by $129,000, Albany Police Chief James Younger said.

Younger and the heads of the city’s fire and public works departments responded to questions about their budget proposals at a city commission meeting Monday held in a boardroom of Southwest Georgia Regional Airport.

When 10 officers complete field training in July, it will be “the first time in several years that we will be able to fill all of the beats and all the shifts without any overtime,” Younger said.

But after extensive discussion, city officials asked Lott to find additional funding for police personnel dedicated specifically to gang activity.

“The water is muddy” with the city’s tactical unit, which assigns personnel based on crime trends and occurrences, Mayor Willie Adams said.

“I want a clear answer on who’s doing what,” Adams said. “We need more money, more officers.”

Acting in response to citizen complaints, “our tactical unit is... more reactive in terms of gang activity,” Younger said.

“At this point we don’t have a specific team of officers working proactively to the extent that I’d like to see deal with gangs.”

City Manager Al Lott said that Albany participates in the District Attorney’s gang task force.

“I’ve visited that task force,” Adams said. “They all had on shirts and ties, and they all looked kind of middle class and above to me.

“I wonder how much interfacing they have with the people that are causing the problem,” he said.

The APD works with the office of District Attorney Ken Hodges to prosecute offenders accused of gang-related activities, Younger said.

“If you need more money and more personnel to take control of this situation, please let the people at this table know,” Adams said.

“We are not organized. A lot of people are doing a lot of different things,” Commissioner Dorothy Hubbard said.

“Let’s not classify every child that we see as a gang member,” Commissioner Tommy Postell said. “What we have to do is get to the school- age kids, and now they’re (as young as) elementary school.”

“Can we solve things overnight, or can we solve things just by pouring money into it? I don’t think so. I’m just saying I agree with the mayor. I don’t see things happening,” Commissioner Morris Gurr said.

Gangs are a “cyclical issue,” that has revived since the decline of federal funding for gang prevention, Commissioner Bob Langstaff said, suggesting the city hire a single gang expert.

“Somebody’s got to have tabs on it forever,” he said, and be “so focused on it they get into the lives of (gang members).”

With the multi-jurisdictional Albany Dougherty Drug Unit, which sometimes deals with gangs, “what I encountered was a territorial problem,” Adams said.

“That’s the problem with the drug unit concept, that collective concept,” Lott said.

Toward the end of the three- hour meeting the commission authorized Lott to pursue a subject matter expert on gangs to study the creation of a city gang fighting unit of 5-7 officers, Assistant City Manager Wes Smith said.

The board also heard presentations from Public Works Director Phil Roberson on his department’s $26.4 million budget for 2008-2009 during the Monday session.

“The cost of all those commodities related to crude oil — asphalt, concrete and the like, have doubled in the last 4-5 years, and we’re trying to do the exact same amount of work we used to do with exactly the same amount of money,” Roberson said of the department’s streets division.

The department will conduct a needs assessment later this year to show the potential economic and regulatory impact of the city’s failure to make improvements to its sewer infrastructure, he said.

Albany Fire Department’s new budget of $10,987,623 includes Dougherty County’s contribution of $2.848 million, Fire Chief James Carswell said.

The department employs 188 and maintains 13 buildings and 43 vehicles, Carswell said.

Albany’s Insurance Services Office rating of 3 saves property owners $19 million in insurance premiums annually over what they’d pay if the rating was a 10, he said.

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