The Odem City Council is reconsidering its disbanded police department amid resident concerns over response times, balancing financial constraints and community safe

ODEM, Texas — The future of the Odem Police Department is once again under discussion after city council held a special meeting earlier this week. 

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Nearly two years after it was disbanded, the city council raised the possibility of bringing the department back,

Driving on U.S. 77 through Odem, you might miss it. What is now a municipal court once housed the city’s police department, but ongoing financial issues ultimately led to its closure.

City of Odem Mayor David Maldonado said the police department was over $700,000 over their budget. 

“At the time our expenses exceeded $400,000 a month. We were only bringing in about $250,000 a month in revenue, so we just couldn’t pay the bills to keep the lights on basically,” Odem Mayor David Maldonado said. “So we had to look closely at areas where we could either generate an additional $500,000 a year or cut $500,000 out of our city budget.”

But the department could soon be making a comeback. City of Odem Councilmember Place #5 Virginia Garza said locals are voicing their concerns. 

“Well, the reason we’re bringing it back is we’ve had citizens that have approached us that they would like, faster response time with their problems with the issues,” Garza said.

Although Mayor Maldonado said there hasn’t been an increase in crime in the area, there has been an rise in traffic violations.

“The crime rate in, in Odem is not that great. It’s a small city, but they do have traffic in a neighborhood of 2000 to 25,000 cars pass through Odem every day,” San Patricio County Sheriff Oscar Rivera said.

In the meantime, Sheriff Rivera said his department will continue to lend a hand to the city until they figure it out.

“There should be no boundaries for law enforcement for the protection of our citizens, our children, our churches, our schools and so we did what we had to do to take care of Odom we have been doing that for about one year and seven months,” Rivera said. “At this time, and the beauty of it for Odom is it doesn’t cost them a penny. We do it for that’s part of our job and so we have no intentions of stopping and walking away if they wanna get into the police department that’s fine with us.”

Maldonado said the communities input matters more now than ever. 

“Right now the city of Odem taxes are probably the lowest in the area. Are they willing to increase taxes to pay to, to get the additional $300,000 a year that, that we may need without having to cut any of the services that we already provide to them,” Maldonado said. “So my recommendation is gonna be, you know, that maybe we put it on the next ballot that’s available and let’s see what the citizens want.”

The city is planning a community town hall and that date will be announced later. Then on January 26, city leaders will host a  workshop.