The Joplin City Council held a work session on Monday, February 9, 2026, at 11:45 AM (UTC). The meeting covered two agenda items: a review of the Proposition Police and Fire election plan and a discussion of facility security improvements based on a CPTED (Crime Prevention Through Environmental Design) audit. Council directed staff on funding options and prioritized employee safety and security projects.
No other business was discussed, and the meeting adjourned.
Evening everyone and welcome to the Joplin City Council work session for Monday, February the 9th, 2026. We have two items on the agenda tonight, and we're not stalling at all. Let's get started with item number one proposition police and fire election plan. Good evening, Mr. Edwards. Good evening, Mayor and Council. The item for tonight is to review with you the proposition police and fire election plan. What this information essentially amounts to is the commitments that will be made should the voters of the city uh vote in favor of proposition uh police and fire. Uh there's a number of uh documents to review, but I'm gonna work primarily off of uh this document that uh is in your materials. Uh we all know the importance of uh public safety, what it means for our community. Uh favorable vote would allow for the city to do significant improvements uh for our public safety departments. Uh excuse me. Um I think if if this uh if the vote is favorable, uh it would go a long way into securing uh Joplin's future, not just today, but uh in future years. Uh this is all about uh big investment into uh police and fire to help address the issues that are present in our community and to help improve our services uh to the public. So I really want to call your attention to uh a box, I think it's on your third page there. What a vote yes allows for. Uh the the core thing that we're trying to address, we're we're we're trying to balance multiple needs uh here and address uh three main issues. One is uh staffing. Uh we know uh from our conversations with FOP and the IFF about uh service calls and the demands that those uh calls are putting on our on our uh first responders. We know we're a growing uh community, so it's important for us to have the capacity uh necessary to be able to respond more proactively uh in the community and be prepared for future growth. So a vote yes allows for nine additional uh police officer positions. This would allow us to uh add an additional beat. Um that adding additional beat uh helps uh the city circulate uh more officers on a more regular basis all throughout the city, so you would have a greater concentration of officers uh uh in the city across multiple beats. Uh so that that is a big improvement. It should result in uh citizens seeing uh more officers on the streets and also help us reduce uh response times. Uh additional firefighters, uh this is a significant um thing that we're trying to strengthen here. I know Chief Easel's been before you and has talked about having nearly uh 10,000 calls. That is uh just a tremendous amount of work for our uh firefighters. And there's also uh with the fire department issues of uh minimum staffing and uh having to sometimes force overtime and the the amount of overtime that's needed to have uh shifts filled. So uh hiring six additional officers will significantly help us with that. Uh the plan would be to uh look at uh station six and then also have some additional uh swing personnel. I think the key feature of uh proposition uh police and fire is uh what it will do for a wage on a wage perspective. Um we're really uh focused in on competitiveness. We know that on average uh police officer or firefighter uh compared to the regional market, we're sometimes 12 to 7,000 dollars but below that amount, and that's probably even outdated uh right now. So city needs to take a gigantic step forward on our wages if we're able wanting to attract um uh new police officers and new firefighters. Uh and then the third thing, I talked about balance, uh, trying to balance uh what proposition uh police and fire can fund across multiple different needs is for uh facilities and equipment. Uh you know, the city's uh turn 50 years old uh thereabouts. Um and so it's important for us to uh be able to regularly replace uh our fire stations so that we have the ability to respond uh 247 365. We have an aging fire station three that's shown some significant um uh decline, and so uh being able to replace fire station three uh is uh being proposed as part of uh police proposition police and fire. Also the monitorization of the uh police firing range, that's a really important facility for us. It is uh kind of near to uh a neighborhood, and so we want to make sure that that uh firing range uh not only gets through tomorrow but lasts another uh 30 years. So uh re redoing the berms and doing some uh better security and uh training space at the range is really uh critical for us. And then uh improvements to the public safety uh training center. Uh both chiefs have brought this forward a couple different times during the budget process about needing to have uh spot where uh we can drop gear or go to the bathroom or uh uh just having like an outdoor space uh there at the uh public safety training center, the back where they do a lot of the drills and a lot of the training, it's just a big open parking lot, and so sometimes when you have a lot of folks uh out there working and training, it's it's uh the facility needs are kind of inadequate for that outdoor component. And then uh better equipment, uh this adds funding for uh police vehicles. I know last year there was uh you know we did a lot with uh take-home cars. Uh this uh helps with that, and then also uh replaces uh fire uh the ladder truck and a rescue truck. So as you can see, uh proposition uh police and fire if improved would help us across many different areas. And another key feature is that it would allow some for some flexibility in the general. I'll stop there and see what uh questions you have.