New police chief rebuilding department

SPIRIT LAKE — Spirit Lake Police Chief Michael Morlan is ready to restore a sense of safety in Spirit Lake, with the help of new lieutenant Eric Reade.

“Our ultimate goal is to serve the community with the level of service that they deserve,” Lt. Reade said.

The Spirit Lake Police Chief inherited challenges with the police department when he was hired Aug. 9. He immediately hired his friend and long time coworker Reade to help him rebuild the department.

The department was down to one police officer, the budget wasn’t settled between the City Council and city staff, and ongoing disagreements between the council and mayor made Morlan’s budget considerations unclear. The city had also lost a contract with Lakeland Joint School District for a school resource officer and was considering a contract with the Kootenai County Sheriff’s Office to provide enforcement in the city.

Now, the Spirit Lake Police Department has four sworn officers and Morlan’s goal is to have six by Christmas.

“We have the ability to hire, but we’re going to focus on lateral officers so we can stand up our department,” Morlan said.

He’ll begin by hiring experienced officers and then build a training program internally to appeal to more people, hopefully making hiring easier when the department can offer certifications and training. Former Spirit Lake officer Chris Gift cited lack of training as a factor in his decision to leave the department.

“There weren’t opportunities,” Morlan said.

Now he’s working with the Idaho Counties Risk Management Program, a member-owned carrier that provides property and casualty insurance for public entities, to provide certification training for field officers.

“As we bring in new officers, we’ll be able to certify our own,” Morlan said.

Applications are coming in from California, Utah and Idaho. A potential candidate from the California Highway Patrol could come with Peace Officer Standards and Training certification in California. If hired, he’ll pursue Idaho POST certification.

“Then, hopefully, we’ll be able to write some grants and fund several entry-level officers,” Morlan said. “Because then we’ll have the luxury of being able to send them to the academy. That’s the challenge, is being able to hire within the budget.”

The Spirit Lake Budget includes $610,000 for department salaries and wages for the 2024 fiscal year, plus a buffer of grant money from the America Rescue Plan Act.

“We’re planning on being good stewards,” Morlan said. “We’re not going to spend every nickel.”

The council has expressed total support in rebuilding the police department and committed additional funds to give the chief everything he needs.

“We understand we are working within a very tight budget,” Lt. Reade said. “Even though we have a little bit of a surplus right now because of extra funds, we’re going to look at that very carefully.”

An experienced core group of officers will help create the shared vision Reade and Morlan have for a constitutional department. Morlan would like to get software for reporting crime stats in order to have full transparency.

Since May, when the department was down to one officer, deputies have been called to respond.

Domestic violence calls, which require backup, could take minutes to hours for deputies to arrive.

“The sheriff’s office has stepped in to fill the gap,” Morlan said. “We’ve been in conversations with them, and they have responded to calls.”

Council members were in discussions with the sheriff’s office for a contract to cover the city when Chief Morlan was hired. Now, the spirit of those discussions has shifted from emergency coverage to ongoing support.

“They have bent over backwards to assist us with resources and provide us resources where we need,” Reade said. “Now that the chief and I are here, and we are moving forward with developing this agency and bringing it back up to the staffing levels it needs to be at, we are going to be responding quickly to every call. There’s no calls that we are not going to respond to.”