WARNER ROBINS, Ga. — Two top Warner Robins officials briefed Houston County leaders on the state of the International City Thursday morning.
It happened at the Chamber of Commerce's monthly 'Eggs and Issues' breakfast.
The events are a chance for Houston County leaders to network across city lines and connect with peers. Warner Robins Mayor Randy Toms and Acting Police Chief John Wagner headlined the event.
Their focus, unsurprisingly, was their city: where it's been, where it is now, and where they want to lead it in the future.
Toms couched his remarks in demography.
"Warner Robins is the 11th largest city in the state of Georgia now," he said. "We're not just some small little town. We're a big city."
He praised the growth that got the city to this point and highlighted many of the benefits. However, he also noted the challenges. One of the biggest: hiring and retaining police officers.
"It's urgent that we find a way to bring on more law enforcement officers," he said.
Toms said to do that, the city might have to raise officer salaries.
Making that happen might mean a difficult decision for elected officials.
"When you look around the state and people are raising salaries for law enforcement officers, you either got to get serious or you got to realize that you're not going to catch up, and you're always going to be behind," he said. "So there's things that we got to look at that are a little bit uncomfortable from an elected position point of view. One of them is looking at the millage rate."
He noted the political risks that proposal carries, but said it needs to be considered.
"I'm not running for office right now, and it's easy for me to say, but it's hard politically to make the comment that you've got to raise the millage rate, but the truth of the matter is that if we want the safe community that everybody says we want, we have to at least take a look at that option," said Toms.
Acting Police Chief John Wagner said the department's been recruiting heavily and recently swore in four new officers.
He said getting the support necessary to bring the department to full staff is important. Not doing so, he said, can leave officers overstretched and fatigued. It's a combination that could lead to dangerous situations.
"The officers are amazing, but you do get tired," Wagner said ."When you get tired, sometimes you make bad decisions, and in law enforcement you can't make a bad decision, because the whole point of it is at the end of the day is to go home safe."
Wagner also laid out some of his strategy for tackling crime.
"I do believe blue lights are a deterrent for crime, so what I did do is we had a small traffic unit, we are going to build that, I went ahead and added another person into that," said Wagner.
He went on to say he wants the department to be more visible in the community. To help make that happen, patrol officers will begin illuminating their 'cruise light' while on patrol. It's a solid blue light on the car Wagner says will make it more obvious when police are patrolling an area.