DELTA'S POLICE CHIEF LOOKS TO GET HANDLE ON TOWN HOT RODDERS

DELTA -- Speeders through Delta these days may have a surprise in store: The tiny municipality has developed its own police department.

Chief of the department, David Townsend, said stopping speeders has been his top priority.

With one officer, Michael Counts, and one auxiliary officer, Jerry Wayne Hampton, they also work to keep the peace in the town of 500.

Since May the police department has been headquartered at a former gasoline station near the city limits.

On Monday a new city hall will open. For several years the city-owned building housed the fire department, but the fire department recently built its own building.

Evans said the building has been remodeled to serve as a police station and a place for city meetings.

Several years ago Delta had a town marshal, said Delta Mayor Paul Evans. "But for one person it's too much. He would just get home and someone would call in the middle of the night," said Evans.

The city had been without its own police protection until Townsend was hired to form a department in May.

The Cape Girardeau County Sheriff's Department provides law enforcement service to the city. But Evans said city officials wanted a more constant presence.

"We're in the lower end of the county, and a lot of times, unless someone was nearby, it took several minutes before someone from the county could get here," Evans said.

But more troublesome, he said, was the fact that people were speeding through Delta along Highway 25.

"It was getting to the point that people knew we didn't have a police department. They didn't even slow down," Evans said. "People would just go around me because I wasn't going fast enough."

The speed limit in town is 35 mph.

"We had one person stopped going 85. That's too fast," Evans said.

Townsend agreed the main task for Delta's police is traffic patrol, especially speed control. "Most of the time we're out patrolling and running radar," Townsend said.

"We're noted about the speed control," Townsend said. "People wanted to run through here at 55 or 60 miles an hour. We've got them slowed down."

The town also had trouble with teens "hot-rodding" on city streets, Townsend said. "That's just about all ceased."

The mayor said having police officers on patrol also curbs other problems. "It makes people feel more secure," Evans said.

Townsend has experience in law enforcement. He patrolled in Delta in 1985 and 1986. He was also Chaffee police chief in the 1970s.

Most recently he had been working with Burlington Northern Railroad.

"When I left the railroad I wanted to get back into law enforcement," Townsend said.

It's a part-time police job. Townsend works about 25 hours a week as does Officer Counts. They split the time and divide the shifts so someone is working for six to eight hours almost every day.

Townsend said city officials didn't want a full-time police department working 24 hours a day.

Townsend said some calls are dispatched out of the Cape Girardeau County Sheriff's Department.

He said the Delta police also work with the Chaffee Police Department. "Sometimes they dispatch us on the radio," he said.

Maintaining a police department, even a small one, is costly. Evans said the city recently bought a 1992 police car. The old car was generating a lot of repair bills.

But Townsend and Evans agreed the department has been good for Delta.

"I know Delta looks like a small town, but it's bigger than it seems," Townsend said. "It's right around 500 people."

In a small town, he said, police officers get to know the people in town. "I live in Chaffee, but I'm an old Advance boy," he said. "I know a lot of people around here."