A majority of the St. Paul City Council say they’re open to discussing adding more police officers to the St. Paul Police Department — even if it’s not 50 officers in two years.

Mayor Melvin Carter, meanwhile, said recently that he continues to believe “we need a new approach” to public safety.

“It needs to be focused on a balanced approach that focuses not only on our response after an emergency, but on the investments that we can make as a community to prevent emergencies from happening in the first place,” Carter said.

The issue of adding 50 officers to the city’s ranks came up June 20, as St. Paul Police Chief Todd Axtell answered questions from city council President Amy Brendmoen during his annual address to the council.

Axtell pointed to the city’s rising population and a stark increase in 911 calls.

But more than anything, Axtell said he wanted enough staff to allow new officers to spend six months in the department’s community engagement unit before they take their first 911 call.

“I firmly believe that when police officers get to know their community, we’re all better served before they police their community,” Axtell told council members.

Carter later posted his concerns about the request to Facebook, noting the “philosophy that more police officers, tougher prosecutors and bigger jails equal a safer city has failed.”

How the issue will shake out remains to be seen. After Carter’s post, council members said they weren’t ready to reject Axtell’s proposal — at least not entirely. And Carter doesn’t have a “yes” or “no” answer about whether St. Paul currently has the right number of officers.

“Those are the decisions that we’ll be making in the next month through our budget process,” Carter said. “… I can tell you that I’ve always believed that we as a city should invest more in our recreation centers, should invest more in our neighborhoods, should invest more in our libraries. … My hope and goal is to work with the city council to produce a budget that reflects those values.”

Carter, who campaigned on a platform of “Community-First Police Reform,” was overwhelming elected in November. One of his opponents, Pat Harris, had pledged to put 50 new officers on the streets right away, if he was elected.

A coalition of clergy and faith leaders are planning to speak out about the issue Monday, saying they’re opposed to adding 50 officers.

“As people of faith committed to racial, economic and social justice, we believe our city budget must make investments that promote community-first public safety, foster community wellness, and address the root causes of crime,” ISAIAH organizers wrote in a statement.

Carter will present his proposed budget for next year in August, budget discussions will continue through the fall with the council and members will vote on the budget in December.

COUNCIL PRESIDENT OPEN TO ADDING MORE OFFICERS, ANOTHER SAYS MAYOR ‘ON TRACK’ WITH PRIORITIES

Adding 50 officers would take approximately $4.5 million over two years, according to the police department. Axtell said the department is looking for grants to help pay for them.

St. Paul’s budget is $563 million this year, of which $101 million goes to the police department.

“If we have $5 million to invest in new ways in our city, I’m hard-pressed to believe that spending it all on police officers is our top need,” Carter said. “We have needs to invest in our streets, we have needs to invest in our recreation centers and our libraries, we have needs to invest in our aging housing stock.”

Brendmoen said she is open to adding more officers, even if it’s not as quickly as Axtell wants.

Brendmoen said the request for 50 officers might conjure the wrong image with critics, but residents should not expect a blue wall of uniforms in the streets.

Instead, she feels select units, such as a mental health unit or sexual assault investigators, should grow to meet the city’s growing population.

“I want to be sure our officers are well-trained to handle mental health issues and that every officer is competent in interacting with people from all cultures and walks of life,” Brendmoen said. “I also want to know that we are properly staffed to serve our rapidly growing community so each call for service is given appropriate time and care.”

Council member Dai Thao — who has called for greater police accountability — said the mayor “is on track” with his priorities.

“I’ve always advocated for more jobs for youth to gain learning opportunities,” Thao said, “and for community engagement officers and community ambassadors who are on the ground getting to know neighbors and deterring crime before it happens.”

MORE 911 CALLS, LONGER RESPONSE TIMES

Council member Jane Prince said that while she did not have a specific number in mind as to how many officers the department should add, she felt Axtell’s request for 50 new officers had been taken out of context.

“For the people I represent, longer 911 response times are not good news,” said Prince, whose ward includes a large section of the East Side. “The city is growing. We need to grow the force with the growth of our population. … I also know that our police department is operating in ways that most cities don’t operate, including an emphasis on community engagement and some other innovations that may require we have a few more cops.”

Dave Titus, St. Paul Police Federation president, said the demands on officers are higher than ever. He believe St. Paul needs 100 more officers.

“More officers on the street would improve relations because it would allow more time for conversation and interaction rather than officers being forced to go call-to-call all day long,” he said.

911 calls have increased by about 30 percent over the past five years, Axtell said.

As a result, it takes longer for officers to be sent to an incident because a dispatcher has to find officers who aren’t busy on other calls, a police spokesman said.

911 calls are assigned a priority code based on the seriousness of what a caller reports. In 2013, it took 1 minute, 34 seconds on average to dispatch an officer to the most serious calls, such as a shooting. In 2017, it was 2 minutes, 43 seconds on average, according to the police department.

Council member Dan Bostrom, a former St. Paul police sergeant, was skeptical of the mayor’s statement in his Facebook post that the city would “reduce the number of times we have to call police in the first place.”

“That’s interesting. I’d like to see how you’re going to do that,” Bostrom said. “You’ve got a situation in a domestic (call) where some guy is beating up his wife or beating up his kids. How do you get ahead of that? The guy’s a bad guy.”

WHAT’S THE RIGHT NUMBER OF OFFICERS?

What Axtell told the city council about wanting 50 new officers wasn’t new information to Carter.

The mayor said he and Axtell had met about next year’s budget and the police chief discussed his interest in hiring additional officers.

“That’s not a proposal that’s new to me or that’s new to St. Paul,” Carter said. “… The chief has known my reservations.”

Carter points to a Governing magazine article, which notes the average number of officers per 10,000 population was 18.6 in 2015 for cities with populations of 200,000 to 500,000.

The U.S. Census Bureau estimated St. Paul’s population at nearly 307,000 people last year. The police department’s authorized strength is 626 officers, which equates to about 20 officers per 10,000 residents.

The International Association of Chiefs of Police does not endorse the use of population ratios as a model for calculating sworn personnel staffing needs, according to Sarah Guy, the group’s spokeswoman.

“The industry standard that the IACP both supports and helped establish, is to rely on various data to identify operational workload demands, and consideration of other factors, to make these determinations,” she said.

BUDGET DISCUSSION EXPECTED TO BE DIFFICULT

Axtell said he and Carter continue to discuss public safety strategies.

“We have very similar goals and passion for making sure St. Paul is as safe and inviting as possible and how we get to that goal is sometimes debated, but in a very respectful way,” Axtell said.

And Carter said Axtell’s proposal for more officers hasn’t changed his confidence in him as chief.

“The chief’s job is to advocate for the police department, and that’s what I see him doing,” Carter said. “My job is to run an entire city, and that means balancing the needs that I hear from the police chief with the needs that I hear from all of our department directors and the needs that I hear when I’m out in community.”

Whatever decisions are made, the coming budget season will be a difficult one, said council member Samantha Henningson, who will step down in August when a new Ward 4 council member is elected.