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Mayor Hashmi said he understood that might be additional work to keep up with the list, but <br />asked Chief Hundley if adjusting that was a possibility. Chief Hundley said he would look into <br />it. <br />Chief Hundley invited Council Member Plata to come to the PD and ride with an officer, as well <br />as review the list on the board and Council Member Plata said he would do so. Chief Hundley <br />said every Wednesday the list of security jobs is available to sign up, but that if someone calls in <br />and security is needed within 24 hours, an emergency e -mail is sent and if a call is received that <br />security is needed right away then whoever is available at that time gets the security job. <br />Council Member Plata wanted to know why the officers were no longer allowed to wear ball <br />caps and Chief Hundley said that had to do with command presence and in fact, they had voted <br />as they did uniforms. <br />Council Member Plata inquired what was being done to recruit minority officers and Chief <br />Hundley said letters were sent to pastors of African - American churches and the NAACP, and <br />that he and the City Manager had discussed explorer posts. Chief Hundley explained there were <br />certain State requirements that had to be met dealing with qualifications, that a candidate also <br />had to be twenty -one years of age or have sixty semester hours of college. Council Member <br />Plata suggested contacting the Young Life Director, as well as several Hispanic ministers and <br />said he would be more than glad to do that if city staff wanted him to do so. Chief Hundley said <br />that would be good. <br />Council Member Lancaster asked if there were any females on the police force and Chief <br />Hundley answered in the affirmative. <br />Council Member Plata said the perception in certain areas of the city was there was a lack of <br />police presence, specifically West Paris and Paradise Estates. Chief Hundley said the PD does <br />patrol those areas. <br />Mayor Hashmi asked if they could have more presence in those areas and Chief Hundley told <br />him yes. <br />Council Member Plata inquired about the drug task force and Chief Hundley explained federal <br />funding cut the program, and said they needed additional police officers assigned to work <br />nothing but drugs. <br />Council Member Plata asked if the Council could get quarterly updates on crime stats and Chief <br />Hundley said he would get that to the Council. Chief Hundley reported that crime rate in Paris <br />had in fact decreased over the last four years. <br />Mayor Hashmi said he wanted to be clear and straight forward, in that it was serious for the City <br />to spend money to train officers and lose those officers. He also said he personally supported a <br />salary increase for police officers but he wanted to see results as to the issues brought forward to <br />this meeting. <br />