ANN ARBOR TOWNSHIP, MI - After nearly two years of debate regarding the role of public safety at Washtenaw Community College, and one final contentious debate on Tuesday, Sept. 19, its Board of Trustees voted to establish a law enforcement agency for the college.

Trustees also approved a resolution that established a public safety advisory committee and granted law enforcement authority to WCC campus resource officers. The motion establish an agency consisting of four armed on-campus police members was approved by a 5-2 vote, with members Dave DeVarti and Ruth Hatcher dissenting.

After nearly an hour of debate regarding the language of the resolutions and whether WCC needed armed, on-campus police, board members voted to move forward with the process of hiring three campus resource officers, in addition to reactivating WCC's current Chief of Campus Safety Scott Hilden's sworn status through the state of Michigan.

Board of Trustees member Richard Landau said a law enforcement agency is necessary for WCC, which currently is "a soft target" without one.

"Every day that goes by, we are the only higher education institution in this county without this presence," Landau said. "I am terrified if an incident happens and we have not done something as a board. It's been almost two years that we've been discussing this."

DeVarti set the tone for the meeting prior to the vote during general discussion among the trustees when he made an impassioned speech against the establishment of the police force, pointing to the deaths of young black men at the hands of police officers.

At the conclusion of his remarks, he put on a black T-shirt with the words "I Can't Breathe," in reference to the words of Eric Garner, who died after a New York City Police Department officer put him in what has been described as a chokehold while arresting him.

Devarti said racially-motivated discrimination among law enforcement is a potential concern for him on campus.

"WCC does not have on-campus residents, we are not a 24/7 institution, we are not located geographically urban environment infested by crime," he said. "It remains to be demonstrated to me that there exists any need for police on our campus."

At one point in the discussion, Landau and DeVarti had a heated exchange with Landau accusing DeVarti of filibustering the issue to avoid voting on the creation of an agency.

"We have due-processed you to death - you have filibustered this issue and put on a T-shirt for goodness sake," Landau said. "This isn't a publicity stunt."

"I'm a grown man, you don't have to patronize me," DeVarti countered, prior to the motion eventually going to vote.

Over the past two years, WCC has looked into better addressing issues of safety on campus at a time when conduct-related cases processed through the Dean of Students have nearly doubled from 112 in 2013 to 232 in 2016. These cases can include everything from claims of harassment and stalking to larceny.

Since arriving at WCC in November 2016, Hilden analyzed security practices at peer institutions and gathered input from around 400 faculty members, staff and students, ultimately recommending the college revamp its current Campus Safety Department to include four additional campus resource officers.

WCC currently spends around $1.5 million to employ 27 full and part-time security staff members, which includes clerical and support personnel in addition to officers who provide "customer service" on campus, including assisting motorists and helping out in the event of minor car accidents.

Under the new law enforcement agency, the college will recruit, hire and manage the staff of professional, full-time sworn school resource officers who would patrol campus from around 7 or 8 a.m. to 11 p.m.

"It's all about public safety and ensuring that this campus is an environment that our students can focus on their education and not have to worry about anything else," said Hilden, a 25-year veteran of the Canton Police Department, who has first-hand experience as a school resource officer.

"Probably one of the most important things is going to be hiring people with the qualities and characteristics that will work well in a school environment," he added. "People with diverse backgrounds, life experiences, being able to treat people fairly and equally and bringing in the highest quality people we can possibly get (will be important)."

Hilden will now begin an extensive recruiting and vetting process that could take up to nine months.

WCC, which had previously considered contracting with the Washtenaw County Sheriff's Department and private security agencies, set aside $330,000 in the 2016-17 budget year to hire two sheriff's deputies to contract as resource officers with the school. Instead, the school hopes to train its own officers with the same funds.

Hilden said WCC must now work with the Michigan Commission on Law Enforcement Standards before hiring its first sworn-in law enforcement officers.

Unlike its current security patrol officers, who have no authority to deal with threats of violence, weapons or criminal matters, hired campus resource officers would be certified law enforcement officers under the Michigan Commission on Law Enforcement Standards, meaning their authority would be identical to an officer working for a city or county police agency. They also would be able to carry a weapon on campus.

Hatcher was concerned about the language of the board's policy to create the agency.

"It's very, very important that these (officers) do develop a relationship with the people on our campus," she said. "That they know our students and faculty. I don't want a young, black faculty member, like my son to be accosted like he was by security here - because he was here, he was young, and he was black, and, 'What the hell are you doing here?' And it wasn't polite, and I don't want that to happen again. So I want to know what those procedures are."

Other members of the board the establishment of a police force as a means of safeguarding the campus in the event of an emergency and were supportive of its creation.

According Hilden, having trained campus resource officers on campus could reduce response time during an emergency from 9 to 15 minutes to significantly less, because officers will be thoroughly familiar with all the buildings and locations on campus.

"There is plenty of talent out there and there's the ability to select the people that have the right skills and the right sensitivity. There will be no oppression, abuse or people singled out," board member Bill Milliken Jr. said, noting that language of the policy states there will be training on diversity for officers ranging from the autism spectrum to implicit bias.

Prior to passing the resolution to create the agency Tuesday, the WCC board held two public hearings on the matter on April 25 and May 23.