Alamo City Council Remains Firm on Police Closure Decision

The Alamo City Council voted against recontinuing the closure of the Alamo Police Department during their monthly meeting on Jan. 12 in the Alamo City Hall, despite the department’s staffing issues.

Council Member Steve Jones asked the council to reverse its decision to halt all actions to close the Alamo Police Department, claiming the department had lost an employee since the council’s prior meeting. Now, the Alamo Police Department staffs only two full-time officers with some part-time assistance, and the department has seen difficulty in recruiting new officers.

Jones likened the department to a commercial business suffering similar staffing issues to make his point.

“If you’ve got a company out here with two or three crews that do different things, and one of his crews goes from six people down to two, what do you think he would do when there’s nobody applying, nobody looking for a job?” said Jones. “What do you think that business ought to do? I think he would quit.”

Jones offered a motion to officially revisit closure of the police department, but the motion was denied in a 2-4 vote.

“Remember, being safe is what’s important,” said Jones. “By taking advantage of our sheriff department, by having him cover us and not receiving any funds to do it, we’re strapping the county in the same respect, because he’s having to cover us and go slack in the county.”

Council Member Patricia Woodard offered a motion to raise the starting salary of Alamo Police officers from $18 per hour to $20 an hour in an attempt to attract new recruits, which passed unanimously.

During discussion of council members’ 2026 committee assignments, Jones asked if either Council Member Patricia Woodard or Dondrea Geter would trade their seat on the police department committee so he could remain on the committee, but both refused. However, Woodard said Jones would be welcome to attend the meetings, as they are open to the public.

Discussion regarding the police department began during the council’s Nov. 17 meeting, during which Council Member Jones asked to introduce the item to the meeting’s agenda at the beginning of the meeting. Jones argued the council should begin the process to turn the Alamo City Police Department over to the Wheeler County Sheriff’s Office in order to save approximately $51,000 annually. 

While the council had discussed the idea previously, they had decided to delay an official decision in favor of seeking input from residents. Jones argued the council needed to move forward with the decision regardless, citing low election turnout numbers as evidence for low community engagement in council business.

“What I’m saying is they are not interested in what we’re doing,” said Jones during the November meeting. “We need to do what we need to do for the city of Alamo, saving money if we can. We can use it somewhere else, and I just think we need to move on with it, start the process.”

Jones offered a motion to direct city officials to begin the process. While Council Member Geter called Jones’ motion “tasteless” and “classless”, the motion passed with majority support.

In the following December meeting, Alamo city officials presented a breakdown of Alamo Police Department costs from 2019 to 2024. The Wheeler County Sheriff’s Office also presented a proposal detailing how the office would take over the department should the process be completed.

The proposal estimated the current average annual cost for the department would total $326,828, with a six year total cost of $1,960,968. Under the sheriff’s office, the cost to the city would fall to $274,653 annually, resulting in annual savings of $51,828 and $310,968 over a six year period.

Several residents attended the December meeting to argue against the department’s closure during public comments. Many attendees cited concerns of proper coverage and disagreement with Jones’ arguments regarding resident interest and potential savings.

Council Member Woodard also argued against closing the department, citing a $246,000 grant the city had received to pay for officer training and equipment which will remain active until Oct. 31, 2026. Closing the department would require the city to return the grant, which would provide logistical hurdles and damage the city’s ability to receive future grants.

Woodard offered a motion to suspend any action regarding the department’s closure until November 1, 2026. The vote was a tie ultimately broken by Mayor Pamela Lee in favor of the suspension.

“At this time, I don’t feel like we’ve done our due diligence in what we need to do, so I vote with the yays,” said Lee during the meeting.

Following the decision, Jones addressed the attendees, claiming the vote was due to the election of new Council Member Angelia Wright, who would assume Bobby Cox’s seat on the council.

“Now keep in mind, there’s a new council next month, and the control is going to change, and that’s what it’s all about,” said Jones.

Wright, a retired teacher who has lived in the area since 1989, officially began her tenure in the January meeting, though she was sworn into office during the council’s December meeting. She claimed the city would be more able to police itself than the county and hopes the raised starting salary will alleviate the department’s staffing issues.

“We want to be able to make sure that each and every citizen is covered, but being a small town like this with the population as it is, it’s going to be difficult to be able to maintain good police coverage with some of the salaries we’ve had in the past,” said Wright. “But as you’ve seen tonight, we increased the starting salary and hopefully that’ll bring in more applicants, and we’ll have a greater pool to pull from.”

Outside of the police department issue, Wright aims to attract more industry and residents to the city, and hopes to implement activities for children between 4 p.m. and 7 p.m.

The council also saw the swearing in of re-elected members Woodard and Geoffery Villegas. Villegas was also appointed as mayor pro-tem.

 In other business, the council approved the application for a $1 million Community Development Block Grant (CDBG) to pay for sewer upgrades. According to City Manager Jeffery Floyd, the upgrades would provide coverage to 37 more homes. 

Council Member Villegas offered a motion to approve the application, which passed unanimously.

The council also approved contracts with Plenus Systems, Hillard CPA and Perry Avery LLC, as well as bids for the old city hall and parade fire truck buildings.

The Alamo Police Department reported 109 events from Dec. 1 to Jan. 12, including 51 traffic stops, 20 security calls, 10 tag calls, four unlock calls, three animal calls, two information calls, two mechanical calls, two leave calls, two transportation calls, one alarm call, one custody call, one DL call, one door call, one drone call, one EMS call, one follow call, one report, one shot call, one suspicious person call, one theft call, one threat call and one TS call. The department also reported filing eight incident reports and issuing 12 tickets in that time frame.

The Alamo Fire Department received seven calls between Dec. 9 and Jan. 11, including four brush fires, one structure fire, one smoke call and one motor vehicle accident with fire. The department also held one training session on Dec. 15.

For the city’s bank balances, the general account totaled $679,210.51; the water and sewer account totaled $164,554.73; the fines and fees account totaled $10,141,68; the SPLOST account totaled $239,041.67; the school safety account totaled $639.82; the TLOST account totaled $101,479.64; the general fund savings CD totaled $78,726.90; the water and sewer savings CD totaled $210,126; the bond and sinking CD totaled $280,559.20; the ARP savings account totaled $20.40 and the Eastside Park Project account totaled $494,996.27.