During a LaGrange City Council meeting earlier this month, Public Safety Chief Lou Dekmar went over the 2017 Departments of Public Safety annual report.

We’re still digging into those numbers and plan to write extensively about what they mean in the upcoming weeks, but the overall data made easily understandable to the public is impressive.

Anyone can view that report on the city of LaGrange’s website, and we encourage readers to do so.

The report is very comprehensive and likely clears up a lot of questions people have about the police and fire departments in LaGrange.

It covers traffic stops, animal control, use of force and much more.

Since that report was released, the city has also released that the LPD scored well on citizen’s surveys during the year 2017.

A total of 224 citizen survey cards were returned to the LPD in 2017 and the response to most questions were overwhelmingly positive.

For example, in response to the question “Was the police response timely,” 97.3 percent responded that they were satisfied or very satisfied.

The numbers were impressive, but we think it’s even more important that the LPD readily accepts citizen complaints and openly makes those results public.

Sometimes that feedback may not be positive, but it’s important for the leadership of the LPD to know what the citizens of LaGrange think.  Not every score will be a high one, but nothing is more important than what the community thinks.