The City of Sugar Hill not only didn't want to discuss their plans to set up a law enforcement agency, they actively hid it from the public. It's a pretty standard MO. Do what you want to do and don't tell the public until you figure there's nothing they can do to stop you.
I first had a suspicion this was in the works in maybe May 2019, when Brandon Hembree mentioned something at a City Council work session about attending a citizen police academy with Gwinnett County. I didn't think that was just a general interest endeavor, but there wasn't enough for me to say anything to the public. In October, at a candidate forum with the Sugar Hill Youth Council, to which the public was not openly invited and did not attend, he said something about pursuing some type of public safety or enhanced public safety, but didn't go into any detail. He said the idea of a police department was not popular with the public.
At that point, I thought that the residents needed to know about these plans, especially since the City seemed to want to develop the plan without public involvement.
I mentioned them on Facebook and was attacked by the then Councilman, and current mayoral candidate. His argument was a bit discombobulated, and he later deleted part of what he'd said. His argument seems to be that I used the wrong name for it. He could have taken the time to explain to the public what they were trying to do. Instead, he had an angry outburst and tried to stifle and silence me, because he didn't want this to be public knowledge, much less a public discussion. In the end, he only stopped because someone else came on and challenged him.
They can call them "enhanced public safety," "marshalls," "officers," "cops," "police," or whatever they want. These are POST-certified officers. They do carry guns. They can arrest you. And, as law enforcement officers, their word will be taken over yours in a court of law. Those are not small things, and I'm not seeing how their authority is less than a law enforcement officer by any other name.
But, political operators like to argue semantics like that. And as it turned out, his commentary was not only inappropriate, but dishonest. The plans showed up in the 2020 budget after the election, maybe six weeks after his outburst.
While the City mentioned these plans during the hearing, that hearing is always poorly attended because it is held between Thanksgiving and Christmas, when people aren't likely to be paying attention. Between December 2019 and September 12, 2021, it wasn't mentioned again in a public meeting. The City didn't even mention at the City Council work session the week prior that it would be bringing any of this up at the September City Council meeting.
No "Marshall Service," "Department of Public Safety," or anything else materialized in 2020. The City now claims that it had to do with the pandemic.
I suspect it probably had a lot more to do with the fact that the entire country was laser-focused on the issue of law enforcement last year after George Floyd was killed in May. That would have made it almost impossible to fly under the radar.
It's pretty stupid and disingenuous for the City to now act like that wasn't a factor. It SHOULD have been a factor. But that factor should have caused the City to open up about its ideas regarding law enforcement and solicit community engagement, not get even more secretive.
Even when they finally announced this at the September council meeting, they kept referring to it as "community policing", but also went out of their way to declare, "This is not a police department!"
They're STILL stuck on a ridiculous discussion about semantics. The discussion should be whether or not the residents of Sugar Hill want or need the City of Sugar Hill to conduct any security initiatives in addition to what we get from Gwinnett County. And if so, what should that initiative look like. That discussion was the responsible and ethical thing to do. It was critical for laying the groundwork for good community relations, which many law enforcement officers seem to feel enhances their ability to perform their role.