PORT ANGELES — The Police Department has been awarded a $49,592 grant by the U.S. Department of Justice to help continue the downtown resource officer program for at least two years, the department announced Monday.
The program — noted for the downtown resource officer, Duane Benedict, scooting about on a Segway Personal Transporter — was initiated in 2005 in partnership with the Port Angeles Downtown Association.
Some funding lost
The downtown resource officer — who now has an office in the newly opened Gateway transit center at Front and Lincoln streets — was originally funded in part by the various downtown stakeholders who contributed annually approximately $23,000 to augment city funding for the position.
Because of the recession, the association of downtown merchants and business owners has dropped its annual share of the funding.
The downtown officer was assigned because 1.4 percent of the city area generated more than one-fifth of all calls for police services, Deputy Police Chief Brian Smith said in a statement Monday.
Decreased calls
In 2004, the year before the downtown resource officer was assigned, the Police Department responded to 3,598 calls for service downtown, Smith said.
Last year, the calls totaled 1,756, a 51 percent decrease.
It was also last year that Benedict received the $6,500, police-outfitted Segway scooter, purchased entirely through donations from about 30 businesses and individuals.
The Justice Department grant will replace the money the downtown association had been contributing to keep Benedict on his downtown beat.
“Absent this augmented funding, the Port Angeles Police Department would have been forced to reassign the downtown resource officer into more generalized patrol outside the downtown geographic area,” Smith said in his statement.
