Chief says city doesn’t want to tip its hat to bad guys

Police Chief Jeff Barnett said today the section of the Police Department audit that will be presented tonight to the city council that’s marked "CONFIDENTIAL (NOT FOR PUBLIC DISCLOSURE)," was deliberately withheld from the public to prevent revealing strategic information to "would-be criminals."

According to a news release distributed by the city today and available here on the city’s web site, the blank page near the end of the audit "contains information about police deployment and response times. Another section of the appendix discusses the security features of our facilities."

The title of the blank page is Appendix C — Patrol Staffing and Property and Evidence Analysis and Recommendations,

"By providing the number of police officers on duty at any given time or providing our average response time to calls, we could inadvertently compromise the safety of our officers and the community at large," Barnett was quoted as saying in the city’s release. "Telling would-be criminals about our security procedures and facilities is also not in the interest of public safety."

The city’s staff believes the audit endorses previous actions the city has taken in regards to the Police Department, according to today's release.

"The results of this comprehensive review of Kyle Police Department show that the steps we’ve taken to date to hire more staff and upgrade technology have had the desired effect," the release quoted Assistant City Manager James Earp as saying. "When combined with implementing the recommendations from the audit, we are confident that our police department will be even better able to meet the needs of our growing community well into the future."

However, the release also suggests it’s still open to question concerning which, if any, of the audit’s recommendations will be implemented. According to the release, if the city council signs off on the audit during tonight’s meeting, it will then go to something called the Operations Review Committee, the five-member board created by the city to select the company to conduct the audit. That committee will then "review the report and decide which recommendations to implement," the release said.

The release offered no clue as to when this committee might reconvene. There also doesn’t appear to be any information on the city’s web site as to the makeup of the Operations Review Committee.