Crystal Lake will keep its park district police, rejecting proposal to disband 100-year-old department

After several months of discussions, the Crystal Lake Park District voted Thursday night to keep its own century-old park police department in place.

Park board members ultimately voted 4-2 to retain the park police, with one commissioner absent.

Crystal Lake’s is the only park district in McHenry County with its own police department, but the district raised the prospect of disbanding it to save money and resources, since some park police responsibilities are duplications of municipal police duties, according to park documents.

The park district considered hiring private security to cover needed daily patrols as an alternative, Crystal Lake Park District Executive Director Jason Herbster said.

Budget scenarios of having one to two private security shifts a day ranged from about $189,000 to over $323,000 per year, according to park district documents. The least expensive option was to have one shift per day of part-time park district staff to do patrols, which is estimated to be under $99,000 per year.

“There’s still work to be done,” Herbster said. “If our officers aren’t here, it has to be done by someone else so the money is not necessarily going away.”

Despite voting to keep the police, many board members agreed to look deeper into park police duties and its budget.

Commissioner Cathy Cagle suggested creating a standalone budget for the police going forward to further inspect the department’s expenses.

“Budget-wise, it is clear there is not a motivating financial reason to eliminate them,” she said.

Crystal Lake park board President Eric Anderson said he was “disappointed” that the board did not see any positives in disbanding the police. He voted against keeping the police to save taxpayer money and minimize “redundant services.”

“I don’t know why we’re even talking about substituting patrol. That was never the issue,” he said. “The patrol we get will be from the city or the village” of Lakewood.

Discussions on the possible disbandment have been active for months to go over multiple budget scenarios, the impact of the park police and if the matter should be on the ballot for voters to decide.

The budget for the park police department this year was $435,495, which included the $50,000 purchase of body cameras, Herbster said. Last year, the budget was $287,064.

The board looked over different budget scenarios in December, including a 50% reduction in park police budget and matching previous annual budgets that weren’t as high as this year’s.

Over the months, many commissioners voiced support for keeping the park police for their knowledge of the parks and to avoid unforeseen consequences if they were disbanded.

Crystal Lake Park District police officer John O’Hara said the park police have embedded a culture of public safety and prevention which can be hard to measure.

“The only opportunity is to make things worse. To screw it up,” he said.

Crystal Lake resident Dianne Miller said she has noticed an increase of people stealing wildflowers and using fireworks at Lippold Park and a decrease in foot patrols by police.

“I think the regular patrols need to be reinstated,” she said. “That should be a daily walkthrough of each and every park. Not just the parking lots but each and every trail.”

Started in 1924, the Crystal Lake Park District Police Department currently employs 11 people, Herbster said. There is one full-time chief and one full-time officer and the rest are part-time officers.

The department serves 58,000 people in Crystal Lake, Lakewood and a portion of Lake in the Hills with an acreage of 1,400 and is the only park police department in McHenry County, according to park district documents. The McHenry County Conservation District also has a police department.

“I think we need to look at the practices and inspect them a little more rigorously,” Commissioner Michael Jacobson said. “I think a lot more people probably recognize the park police does offer value to the park district.”