After a six-month search, the city is still seeking a director for its Office of Community Safety.
The office itself has been described as an alternative means of fulfilling responsibilities currently assigned to the police, particularly in coordinating and evaluating the city’s responses to issues like mental health crises, youth violence interruption programs and homelessness.
The OCS, which has an initial budget of $250,000, has yet to be staffed or clearly defined. And it seems to have sparked concerns among council members over their support, or lack of, the initiative.
This week, CityView spoke to three council members and Mayor Mitch Colvin, following up on the governing board’s annual strategic planning retreat on Monday and Tuesday, where public safety resurfaced as a top priority for the coming year. Among topics discussed were plans for the city’s OCS, as well as community police, gun violence, youth violence prevention programs, and staff retention and recruitment for the city’s police and fire departments.
Council Member Mario Benavente, who has strongly advocated for the OCS, said he hopes to fully fund the office with an initial $3.3 million budget, akin to the city of Durham’s model staffed by social workers, clinical outreach support staff and peer specialists.
Benavente said it was “incredibly encouraging” to see interest from his colleagues in establishing the OCS as a top priority moving forward. Benavente highlighted in particular the support for an OCS from newly-elected Council Member Lynne Greene and Council Member Deno Hondros, who are the only non-Democrats on the council.
But Benavente said some of his colleagues were hesitant about funding the OCS beyond the initial $250,000 during the upcoming budget cycle, accusing the other Democrats on the council of “waffling” over the issue, in contrast with the apparent outspoken support for expanding the office from Hondros — who is unaffiliated with any political party — and Greene, a Republican.
“My happiest part of it is that some would say that a past council, Johnny Dawkins or District 5 would have been my toughest hill to climb. It's now one of my closest allies in Lynne Greene on this issue,” he said.
Benavente also accused Colvin and Mayor Pro Tem Kathy Jensen of worrying over the political ramifications of advocating for a fully-funded OCS.
“This is an objective, good policy, and you're worried about the politics,” Benavente said. “It really is the worst excuse for not doing a good idea, is misunderstanding the politics of it.”
Speaking to CityView, Colvin and Jensen both denied Benavente’s accusations questioning their support, pointing to their previous votes in favor of establishing the office.
“I won’t dignify that with a real response,” Colvin said of the accusations. “I voted for it because I support it. That's the only reason that any council member voted for it. You don't vote for things that you don't plan to do. However, as we build this out, since it's a new department, we need to do it in a way that is going to be most effective. And we are working with people who have done that before. So I know Mario's eager to get it going, but eagerness is not what we do with taxpayer dollars. We want to make sure they're going to the right place to have the right impact.”
Jensen also denied the claims, appearing to be confused and frustrated by the accusations.
“I don't even know what to say to that,” Jensen said. “I don't understand why he would say that when I'm the one, when it [the OCS vote] failed 4-6, and I brought it back and it became a 9-1 vote to move with the Office of Community Safety.”
Still, while both elected officials indicated support for the office’s existence, neither Colvin nor Jensen pledged to fund the office beyond the initial $250,000 at present. However, Colvin said he would support funding the OCS more than the initial budget “if it calls for it.”
“We have not given its purpose yet,” Colvin said. “Different people may have different interpretations of what it's supposed to do. I do think that, as we get into it and as we found out exactly what its mission is, that if it needs resources, I would support that. I don't want to see anything be underfunded and not be effective.”
Colvin also said he wanted to make sure funding for the OCS was paired appropriately with the police department. The department currently has a $66.3 million budget.
“I do believe this is where Mario [Benavente] and I differ,” Colvin said. “I believe you also have to put the same kind of intentionality in funding the law enforcement side of it, too.”
Greene — who said she recently visited Durham’s community safety office along with Benavente and Council Member Malik Davis — is supportive of an office in Fayetteville, particularly as a means to free up police officers to focus on their core responsibilities. She described the Durham office as doing “exactly what it was supposed to do” when it was set up.
“It's supposed to take some of the burden off police on running calls that aren't really what the police are there for,” Greene said. “We need the police policing. We don't need the police to be mental health counselors or having to go and do welfare checks for elderly people that have family that don't live here.”
Hondros said his vision for the OCS revolves around supporting the youth, particularly “youth programming or expanded programs for violence interrupters.” He said that while each council member likely has a different vision for the office, they seem to be united in the desire to fill current gaps in the city’s public safety infrastructure.
“My vision may differ than my colleagues, but I think generally we're all supportive of those things,” Hondros said.
Hondros added that the mayor has recently created a new committee within the council to advise council members on community safety issues.
Jensen indicated the council needed to work together on a shared vision for the OCS.
“There is not one person saying how this office of community safety is going to come,” Jensen said. “There is 10 people on the council, and we're a team. And there is no ‘I’ in team.”
The search for a director of the OCS has been ongoing for the last six months, with more than 120 applicants considered for the role, Marketing and Communications Director Loren Bymer said. Bymer said in an email to CityView on Wednesday that “an offer was extended to a highly-qualified candidate who ultimately declined the position for personal reasons. We are preparing to relaunch the search with the support of a well-respected recruitment firm.”
The salary for the director would be in the range of $120,000 to $140,000, Bymer said.
Benavente emphasized that the search for a director has so far not yielded a desired candidate willing to move to Fayetteville and take on the responsibilities of leading, developing and potentially expanding an office that the council has not yet defined the scope of.
“Part of the problem was this $250,000 we budgeted is not a real budget for a department,” Benavente said. “So it's kind of like hiring a pilot to build a plane. And we're not promising him a runway. We're not promising him an airport. So how the hell are you going to have me fly anything if I don't have a place to take off from?”
At the council’s upcoming work session on Monday, members will discuss the strategic direction for OCS, with the conversation led by Dr. Gerard Tate from the newly established North Carolina State Office of Violence Prevention.
Contact Evey Weisblat at eweisblat@cityviewnc.com or 216-527-3608.
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