GEORGETOWN, Texas — The Georgetown Police Department was founded in 1948. Newly appointed Police Chief Cory Tchida has been with the department for 25 of those years in various roles. He joined the department after a short stint with the Aransas County Sheriff's Department.
"My goal was really ultimately to get back to Austin. I had worked as a volunteer at Austin PD when I was going to college," Tchida said. "I kind of always envisioned myself going to Austin PD. I kind of had to get back here because Austin wasn't hiring, so I took a job in Georgetown. What was striking to me was that I quickly fell in love with this place."
The City of Georgetown has grown from around 25,000 residents when Tchida joined the department to more than 75,000 today. When a town grows that fast, the police department must change and grow as well.
The chief said that rapid growth places pressure on all aspects of the community, not just the police department.
"There are certainly inherent challenges with that. We are facing the same issues with recruiting and retention that we are seeing throughout the entire job market, really," he said.
Chief Tchida said that the attrition his department saw last year while he was serving as the interim chief was the highest he's seen in several years.
The City is allowing the police department to use overhires within the department to deal with the high turnover. That allows the department to have a new officer ready when a current officer steps down.
"I coined a phrase, and I think it's really important. Much like a lot of employers, we are desperate to hire but we are never going to be desperate in hiring," Tchida said.
The crime rate in Georgetown is significantly lower than the crime rate in the State of Texas as a whole. Chief Tchida said that's not just due to the job the police department is doing.
"That is not Georgetown PD's success, that is this community's success. I'm a firm believer, a huge fan of Sir Robert Peele, the founder of modern policing. One of the things he talks about, and when I talk to the public I hammer this home all the time, the way this is supposed to work is the relationship between a community and its police has always been and should always be a partnership," he said.
Chief Tchida said that the growing City of Georgetown is dealing with the same problems that larger cities face. Homelessness and mental health issues are two that he and his officers have dealt with.
"We're not going to enforce our way out of homelessness. We're not going to enforce our way out of mental health. We want to be part of the equation and we want to do whatever we can to help but these are community-based problems that are going to require engaged communities to actually help start to mitigate and solve some of these issues," Tchida said.
As he begins his stint as the newly appointed chief of police in Georgetown, Chief Tchida said he loves the people he works with and loves the people of the Georgetown community.
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