A change has been made in the agreement for law enforcement patrols between the Town of Zionsville and Boone County.
Mayor John Stehr updated the town council on the ZPD patrol area Aug. 19.
“(Zionsville Police Department) Chief (Michael) Spears has had discussions with the Boone County sheriff about looking at how we’re deploying our resources to best protect our constituents,” Stehr said. “Traditionally, our officers patrol the urban area of town (and) the sheriff’s deputies patrol the rural area. Often, that leaves just a few deputies to patrol a vast area of the county and can affect response time.”
Stehr said the sheriff’s office has asked Zionsville to take over patrol for the southern rural portion of the town between I-865 and 96th Street.
“There aren’t that many calls that come in from this area,” Stehr said. “It’s relatively sparsely populated and it turns out that most of our officers are closer, anyway, and have taken the majority of those calls.”
Stehr said there is no cost to the contract change. The new patrol boundaries include north to CR 300 S; south to the Boone/Marion county line; and east to the Boone/Hamilton county line; and West on Oak Street/Whitestown Parkway to I-65, excluding Stonegate.
“The agencies involved will continue to cooperate with one another,” he said. “This is to formalize what has already been the practice and I think gives our constituents better response time.”
Sterh said members of the Zionsville Board of Police Commissioners were made aware of the change. Town council approval is not necessary. The change is effective Sept. 1.
