MONTGOMERY, W.Va. — Montgomery Mayor Greg Ingram became mayor last year with full intentions of combating crime in the city. The team to do that with him just got a lot beefier. Only a few yeas after the city had only one full-time officer, Montgomery recently hired more officers bringing the total force to ten.
“We’ve been fighting crime since I took office with the new counsel,” he explained. “This administration is not going to tolerate the crime and reputation we’ve had in Montgomery for the past few years.”
Soon after Ingram took office last year he and proposed an increase in the city’s police fee and municipal fee. The new counsel backed the increase. Ingram said it was the first time the fee had been raised 61 years.
“We raised those fees 150 percent on everyone in the city. That paid for a portion of the police officers we hired,” the Mayor explained. “Also we’re in contract with KVC school to provide police protection for the college on the other side of the tracks.”
KVC Health Systems is starting up an educational facility to help children from foster care transition into a college life setting. They’re occupying the old WVU Tech campus in town. Bridge Valley Community and Technical College is also occupying some of the old Tech facilities.
Those newly hired officers are already on patrol in the city. Ingram credited two things for being able to recruit veteran officers to the town, one was hit Chief Paris Workman who had a long standing reputation as a lawman in the Kanawha Valley and being able to offer better pay to officers and lure them away from other departments to go to work in Montgomery.