300 residents: 100 reserves
In Oakley Village the number of residents and the size of local government is very small. The all-volunteer police force is not.
It’s a tiny village – Oakley, Michigan. The population was 290 according to the 2010 census. Oakley has a rather large police department made up primarily of volunteers. Here’s what’s been happening there lately. The city council voted to bench the police force because they did not have insurance. Then the volunteers ponied up to buy insurance for the agency themselves to the tune of $25,000. Then the force was disbanded entirely. But the next day the volunteer officers all showed up for work.
Needless to say there’s no shortage of drama, confusion and contention in this small, central Michigan community.
Here’s the kicker- after the town council voted to disband the rather large volunteer police the volunteers just ignored the council’s decision.
“They’re out of control,” Trustee Fuzz Koski told the Detroit News. “They seem to think they don’t need to have any council approval.”
Irony is getting pretty thick these days. But the idea that the volunteer police force is actually breaking the law by trying to enforce it is the kind of thing that’s hard to wrap one’s head around.
But according to Police Chief Rob Reznick, who’s been extremely busy dealing with the media, the city council doesn’t know what they’re talking about. He says the trustees only disbanded the force until they could get insurance. And now that his people have pitched in for $25,000 worth of coverage it’s “game on.”
“You like to believe I’m running rampant, doing everything on my own. That’s not the case,” he told a reporter.
Reporters tried a couple of follow-up questions but the chief hung up.
Some have expressed dismay at the numbers in Oakley in terms of volunteer cops to residents.
And here’s where it gets downright weird. How can a village of 300 possible afford to fund such a large agency?
The answer is they can’t. According the Detroit News: “The volunteer reserves are well-heeled out-of-towners who donate so much money that they cover the $38,000 police budget and some other government expenses.”
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