State police report to county commissioners

By Daniel Pepper
Staff Writer

In 2007, officers from the Wayland Michigan State Police Post handled approximately 6,400 complaints.

Post commander Lt. Dave Greydanus spoke to the Allegan County Commission at its Thursday, Aug. 14, meeting and told the board members that this year’s complaint statistics stood at 4,100 as of July 24.

Greydanus said that complaints were heavy in the Wayland area, Dorr and Gun Plain townships, the strip in Otsego Township, the Saugatuck/Douglas area, Laketown Township and the lakeshore in general.

He said the state police operated with local police agencies on the closest car concept.

“Our focus is criminal complaints and traffic,” Greydanus said. “We try to traffic as much as we can but complaints are mostly it.”

The post recently received eight more troopers, but a doubling of the post’s coverage area offset that.

Greydanus said the post’s clearance rate on cases was 52 percent. When questioned, he said that wasn’t low.

“We try our best, but 52 percent is actually quite high,” he said.

Commissioner Dean Kapenga, a retired sheriff’s officer, asked about a meeting that took place several years ago on interdepartmental cooperation.

“It’s combined scheduling and we should work on that,” Greydanus responded.

He said he and sheriff’s Lt. Frank Baker, who commands the county’s road patrol, should get together and discuss the matter.

Greydanus pointed to the Focused Investigation Team, a multi-departmental unit working on cold cases as an example of cooperation.

“We have a good relationship with the chiefs of police and sheriff,” he said. “That’s not always the case everywhere around the state.”

Dan Pepper can be reached at dpepper@allegannews.com or at (269) 673-5534 or (269) 685-5985.