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Carl Bush, the new Yellow Springs police chief, says that policing isn’t just answering calls. It’s being proactive, he says, it’s getting involved. “It’s dealing with kids, dealing with perceptions of the community, dealing with social aspects of the community,” he said. That means having more of a presence on the streets, in the schools, in neighborhoods. It means doing little things, like working with the Mills Lawn School safety patrol and offering to make sure car seats are properly secured. It means focusing on “crime prevention.” It means attending community meetings and understanding what the community wants out of its police force. “ We’re here to serve the community so we have to know what they want and what are the issues,” Bush said in an interview in his office last Friday, adding that this includes understanding what the community’s “needs, wants and desires” are for the Police Department. Bush, who started his new job last Monday, said that he plans to spend time getting to understand Yellow Springs and the Police Department. He said that he wants to get out into the community, meet business people, citizens, the staff at the Yellow Springs schools and Antioch. He may organize community meetings or set a time when people can come into the department and talk to him. Indeed, Bush said that he will know if he is successful here “if the department is able to provide a good service, efficient, effective police service to the community.” In October the Village selected Bush, who is 45 and has worked in law enforcement for 26 years, as the new Yellow Springs police chief, replacing Jim Miller. Bush was selected from an initial pool of 81 applicants during a search process that lasted more than half a year. When he applied for the job opening, Bush said, he thought Yellow Springs would be an interesting place to work. A small community offers different opportunities from what a larger department can, he said. “You can do more, you can get out and do hands-on with the community,” Bush said last week. He said that he was attracted to the community of Yellow Springs and that as he went through the Village’s interview process he “really got the feeling that this could be home.” Bush hopes to make Yellow Springs home.
Approximate Word count = 1466
Approximate Pages = 5.9
(250 words per page double spaced)
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