The Ely Police Department hosted large crowds of locals and visitors at their first annual National Night Out event last Tuesday evening.
Several other departments helped make the day a success, including the border patrol, the Ely Fire Department, the Breitung Police Department, and others.
Officers gathered Tuesday in Whiteside Park to oversee activities for kids such as games, face painting and chalk contests. The event — which coincided with Ely’s weekly Farmer’s Market — also featured numerous other attractions, including a bouncy house, food trucks, cop car LEGO sets as prizes and a fire truck which served as a large sprinkler.
“The dunk tank has been an absolute hit. Everybody wants to dunk the cops,” said patrol officer Courtney Olson, who came up with the idea to run a local National Night Out during a night shift several months ago. Olson has been with the department just one and a half years, but she successfully led the organizing and planning.
Across the country, National Night Out aims to place a positive spotlight on police officers and address deeper challenges surrounding negative public perceptions of law enforcement officials, which have especially arisen over the past five years.
“That’s something I’d like to see change, especially in the media, is just more of a (positive) public perception of law enforcement. I think we can do that by having these events and getting our officers out there,”said Ely Police Chief Chad Houde, who added that law enforcement will often be the first to call out a “bad apple” in their ranks.
“People are going to take an interaction they had with law enforcement at some point in their life, whether positive or negative, and that’s what they’re going to focus on when they see (the media stories),” said Houde. “So the more positivity we can get out there, the better.”
Departments statewide have faced significant turnover and recruiting challenges from 2021 onward, and Ely is no exception. The department had 25 applicants for three openings in 2020, five applicants for an opening in 2021, and just three applicants for two openings in 2022. Currently, they have an open patrol officer position waiting to be filled.
“There are so many job openings right now and there are so few applicants,” said Houde. A high number of openings means more choice for individual applicants, but less choice for the departments choosing new officers.
“The applicants that we’re all fighting for, they might not be as qualified. I mean, they’re all qualified, but they’re taking ones that maybe they wouldn’t have taken in the past, especially the bigger agencies,” said Houde. “I want the best employees working for the city of Ely, and I think we do have a good group of people working for us, but you never know what you have until people are actually working for your agency.”
Many applicants choose large agencies that offer the highest rates and benefits, such as those in the Twin Cities metro area, which can start at $60 for a 20-year-old, said Houde. However, smaller departments such as Ely’s also find competition among other nearby towns, which are “all fighting for the same employees,” whereas an applicant five or 10 years ago may have moved wherever they could get hired.
In response, the Ely Police Department has carved out its own niche and developed a branding strategy centered around the community itself and its access to the outdoors, rather than battling for the employees drawn to high-dollar metro salaries. New officers in Ely receive a free canoe - worth about $3,800 - if they stick with the department for at least three years. If an officer were to drop before their third year, they pay back a portion of the cost.
“My assistant chief had this idea, and initially I laughed at him. I said, There’s no way the city’s gonna go for this. And then more and more I thought about like, well, we gotta get creative. Let’s try it. So it was a canoe promotion,” said Houde.
The department has brought in several new officers - as well as kept several familiar faces - over the past few years who appreciate what a small town can offer.
Sergeant Bradley Roy, who has served on the police force for eight years and grew up in Ely, said working in his hometown makes the job simultaneously more difficult and more rewarding.
“A lot of the people I interact with on a daily basis, I knew in high school,” said Roy. “You can relate with them. You understand their story.”
Mike Lorenz spent 13 years with the St. Louis County Sheriff’s Department before he decided to take on a “new challenge” as assistant chief in Ely. He said the young department provided a “breath of fresh air.”
“I take a drive through town, and, you know, every other car is waving at you,” Lorenz said. “It’s not lost on us, the appreciation that we feel here. You’re working and living in a community that actually wants you here and appreciates you, it’s worth a ton. That’s probably the number one thing as far as working in Ely, just that sense of feeling appreciated in the community. I would never consider another agency at this point in my career.”
Running on just an hour and a half of sleep from a night shift and the long day of event setup that followed, Officer Olson echoed her coworkers.
“It is such a rewarding job, even though it’s long nights and some days can be really hard. It is so worth it every single day, every day. I love my job more than anything, to be honest. It’s fantastic, challenging, but fantastic,“ Olson said. “It’s also really nice working with all the people that I get along with. We actually do really like each other, so that’s a really good aspect of the job, too.”
Houde hopes for more stability within the department over the coming years, emphasizing its strength.
“We do have a good crew here, and I’m hoping they want to stick around.”
