The Urbana Police Division is in the final month of celebrating our 150th year as a law enforcement agency serving our fine community. Throughout our history, we’ve witnessed firsthand a commonality among Urbana folks. We care about and try to do our very best for each other during times of struggle and times of success. Challenges should be welcomed as they are what help us all to grow in character, knowledge, strength and perseverance and they commonly guide us to a better way of life.

On May 7, Urbana voters are facing the challenge of supporting an Urbana Police/Fire/EMS tax levy, which in turn, will provide the necessary support needed to provide our community with the services they deserve for many years to come.

For your police division, a “yes” vote brings with it the expectation that we must meet to, once again, have the ability to assign specially trained officers to handle, more precisely, issues surrounding both our youth and senior citizen population with programs to positively promote their safety and well-being. A “yes” vote also helps us to reestablish our criminal investigative unit, disbanded in 2015 due to low manpower, that can be tasked exclusively with handling our more difficult and time consuming cases like death scenes, drug trafficking, child abuse and sex crimes.

I and the members who make up your current police division, thank this community for the support you continually give to us. It will never go unnoticed by us and is oftentimes the support your officers need to help get them through those dark hours of handling the saddest parts of this job.

As always – it is truly an honor to serve the citizens of Urbana.