WYOMING, Mich. (WOOD) — It’s been a little more than a year since voters approved a $4 million public safety millage in Wyoming.
“At that time, we were not staffed appropriately, so it was difficult for us to provide the level of service that we really wanted to for our community,” said Wyoming Department of Public Safety director Kimberly Koster.
The passing of the millage offered a bit of relief, she said, knowing the department would be able to start increasing staff, add fire equipment and continue to focus on community policing.
A total of 13 positions were added to the fire department and 13 were added to the police side.
“We just had a swearing-in last Wednesday for three new firefighters and that means we only have one open position so we’re definitely making progress on the staffing part of things,” Koster told News 8 Wednesday afternoon. “We have a swearing-in on the 30th of this month for six new police officers. We have four that are currently in the academy, and we have six more that we hope to send to the academy in the fall.”
The department is still waiting for the delivery of its platform firetruck, also funded by the millage, which will allow crews to more effectively put out fires in multi-story buildings.
Funding is also being used to remodel the Burton and Division Avenue fire stations.
“Our station on Division Avenue will be opened for the first time, full-time 24/7 and that will really increase the service to the neighborhood over there,” Koster said. “We’ll be able to not only go to medical calls, but have an apparatus that has a fire pump on it, so we’ll be able to respond to any type of medical call or fire emergency in that neighborhood in a much quicker fashion.”
The Division Avenue station is slated to be complete in July and will have a dining room, kitchen, male and female locker rooms, laundry, five individual bunkrooms and a fitness area.
“This is great,” said Wyoming fire chief Dennis Van Tassell. “I’ve been with Wyoming since 1998 and we’ve never run out of this fire station so to have this finally staffed full-time, 24 hours a day, is just phenomenal because this is our busiest district in the city.”
Van Tassel said the district covered by the Division Avenue station is expected to get about 2,000 calls per year.
“Two thousand calls that this engine is taking means that the 36th Street station does not have to come this far over or the Gezon station which is a long way away,” the chief explained. “We’re looking at maybe two minutes per call just by having an engine here so if somebody’s having a life-threatening medical situation or just a fire, we can get there a lot faster and mitigate those situations.”
A major goal on the police side is to reduce violent crime. The city is part of a multi-jurisdictional team that started two years ago called Impact that Koster said has been incredibly beneficial.
“We worked with Kentwood and Kent County on that team to really target some of the areas of the city that we have significant issues and to address some of those violent offenders, so that’s been, that’s been really wonderful.”
Community engagement and the community services unit have also been a big focus. Koster said millage dollars allowed for the addition of an afternoon shift to that community services unit to work on solving issues, rather than just responding to them.
“We’re able to be much more proactive and solve the problem. So looking at issues like stolen vehicles, we can work with the with the owners of the car dealerships to help them, you know, how they can make their business more safe and how we can reduce the potential for those kinds of crimes to occur.”
Koster said she continues to be filled with gratitude for how much support her department gets from the community.
“Not a day goes by that I go somewhere and people are thanking us for what we do for the community and I hear that from our officers too, that the community is just so supportive. Our city administration, our city council, we just have wonderful community support here.”
