New chief concentrating on community involvement

WASILLA — Chief Mike Hughes said his most immediate plans for the city’s police department all rotate around a similar theme — getting involved with the community.

Hughes has been on the job for about two months, starting May 17. He came here from Texas where he was chief of the services division of the Saginaw Police Department.

“If the public is not involved, you can’t police a community,” Hughes said of why he thinks community involvement is so important.

One effort he’s excited about is a series of programs Investigator Ruthan Josten has begun with local senior citizens. Josten will speak on various crime-related topics in a series that is open to the public.

Another program he hopes will yield results is one WPD Sgt. Kelly Swihart is taking a lead on.

The aim is to address quality of life issues; things that might not seem like the most serious of crimes but nonetheless tend to upset residents.

Hughes gave a list of examples that include graffiti, barking dogs and cars driving too fast in residential neighborhoods.

In a lot of ways these types of issues tend to generate the most ill will, which is understandable, he said. Chronic graffiti is a daily occurrence; burglaries and assaults are not.

Police, he said, could even identify things like traffic flow problems — issues police can’t solve themselves but can point out to agencies that can. He’ll need the public’s help on this one.

“A lot of them we can identify, but there’s others that we can’t,” he said.

In the next few weeks, Hughes said he’d also like to start up something his department in Saginaw had — a Citizens’ Police Academy. The idea would be to run a series of classes, maybe one night per week, introducing members of the public to a different police-related topic in each class.

That sort of thing can go a long way toward dispelling misconceptions about law enforcement, Hughes said. Hopefully, he said, the public will come away with a better understanding of “how we make some of the decisions we do.”

Running classes like that also helps a police department find people interested in participating in programs like Neighborhood Watch, something he’d also like to see more of. People who attend classes are also more disposed to provide police with tips for things to investigate.

“You’re going to have a whole lot better chance of noticing things that are out of the ordinary if you actually live in the neighborhood,” he said.

But, having spent two months on the job, how does Hughes like Wasilla?

“I have noticed that there are a whole lot of friendly people,” he said. “People actually take the time to greet you and wave.”

On a professional level, he said, it’s also a great place to work. He said he’s encouraged by how enthusiastic his officers are and how they seem genuinely dedicated to serving the city.

He’s also encouraged to see the four agencies in the Valley — WPD, Palmer Police Department, Houston Police Department and Alaska State Troopers — seem to work together well.

“You look for positive signs coming into an organization and that was certainly one I was happy to see,” Hughes said.

Contact Andrew Wellner at andrew.wellner@frontiersman.com or 352-2270.