(Photo provided by the City of Cortland Office of Community Oriented Policing).
Cortland police chief Paul Sandy said at Thursday’s Police Commission meeting that his department recently received a community-oriented policing grant.
The grant, which is for $125,000 from the U.S. Department of Justice, will be put toward the city police’s community-oriented policing (COPS) program.
The Cortland police department has not had a full-time COPS officer since Jesse Abbott retired in the summer of 2021. Since then, a handful of different officers have assisted in keeping the COPS program running.
Sandy noted that details on how the grant funding can be used is to be determined. The city police chief is unsure if the funding makes his department eligible to hire or appoint a part-time or full-time COPS officer, or other means of funding for the program.
