Belvedere once again eyes sixth cop, structure of Police Department

For the second consecutive year, Belvedere Police Chief Jason Wu urged the City Council to hire a sixth officer. At the annual retreat Feb. 23, a working group of two councilmembers and senior staff backed him — though the group left without a hiring timeline, tasked with returning to the council with a specific plan.

The department recently hired its fifth patrol officer, Tyler Preston, who joined Jan. 4. But City Manager Robert Zadnik said five officers, while an improvement, leaves the department vulnerable.

“Five officers does restore 24/7 coverage with much less reliance on overtime. Importantly, that brings stability back into the system,” he said. “However, it doesn’t eliminate perhaps some structural vulnerability that we’re trying to address.”

Zadnik and Councilmember Peter Mark said the vulnerability is a matter of arithmetic: in a department this size, any officer lost to illness, retirement or resignation creates an immediate coverage crisis.

“It’s not if we’ll have another staffing emergency, but when we’ll have another staffing emergency,” Mark said. “The resilience and the redundancy of the department as configured just isn’t there.”

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