{"id":25578,"date":"2025-10-29T03:14:20","date_gmt":"2025-10-29T03:14:20","guid":{"rendered":"https:\/\/www.newsbeep.com\/us-tx\/25578\/"},"modified":"2025-10-29T03:14:20","modified_gmt":"2025-10-29T03:14:20","slug":"we-didnt-get-it-right-lubbock-city-council-reverses-false-alarm-ordinance","status":"publish","type":"post","link":"https:\/\/www.newsbeep.com\/us-tx\/25578\/","title":{"rendered":"\u2018We didn\u2019t get it right:\u2019 Lubbock City Council reverses false alarm ordinance"},"content":{"rendered":"

LUBBOCK, Texas (KCBD) – The Lubbock City Council reversed a decision made last month to change the city\u2019s false alarm ordinance, following public outcry. That revision<\/a> required all home and business owners with a third-party monitored alarm system to pay for an annual permit.<\/p>\n

Council members apologized for what they called a mistake during Tuesday\u2019s meeting and voted to repeal the revised ordinance, reverting to the previous policy that only fines repeat offenders for calling officers to non-emergencies.<\/p>\n

\u201cCouncil made a mistake in passing this ordinance. We need to today acknowledge it, apologize to the community and fix our mistake,\u201d District 3 Councilman David Glasheen said.<\/p>\n

Community members expressed their frustration with the ordinance change both on social media and in person at the council meeting, asking council to repeal it.<\/p>\n

\u201cI\u2019m ashamed of you,\u201d resident Clint Overland said. \u201cAt least say it\u2019s a money grab.\u201d<\/p>\n

Assistant Police Chief Neal Barron explained the ordinance was intended to reduce officers being sent to false alarms.<\/p>\n

\u201cThat\u2019s our main goal in all of this, is to provide a better response to citizens for the high priority calls where life is in danger,\u201d Barron said.<\/p>\n

Barron said officers spent more than 5,000 hours responding to false alarms last year, costing the city more than $180,000 in officer pay.<\/p>\n

Overland suggested charging alarm companies instead of residents.<\/p>\n

\u201cI understand that the PD are overwhelmed with these false alarms, well then let\u2019s start charging ADT and all these other corporations that are monitoring them and are supposed to be upkeeping them, instead of the citizenry,\u201d Overland said.<\/p>\n

Glasheen said the decision was ultimately the council\u2019s responsibility, but he criticized city staff for how they presented the ordinance change to them.<\/p>\n

\u201cI have to say that the briefing was inadequate. In fact, it was to the point that the briefing was misleading about the content and scope and intentions of the ordinance,\u201d Glasheen said.<\/p>\n

Under the reinstated ordinance, home and business owners with third-party monitored alarm systems do not need a city permit until after their third false burglary alarm or first false robbery alarm in a year.<\/p>\n

Fines and fees from last year brought nearly $149,000 to the city.<\/p>\n

\u201cWe\u2019re collecting quite a bit of money as it is with the false alarms, and they\u2019re still going off. And we\u2019re talking, you know, 10 plus times false alarms for these repeat offenders,\u201d District 4 Councilman Brayden Rose said.<\/p>\n

Council members said they want to revisit the problem with all members and the mayor involved in future discussions.<\/p>\n

\u201cWe want to make sure that the responses and the efforts that our Lubbock Police Department make are understood, appreciated, and going to be effective,\u201d District 6 Councilman Tim Collins said.<\/p>\n

Resident Tonya Jernberg said she\u2019ll be at those future talks, but she was satisfied with the council\u2019s response.<\/p>\n

\u201cI give the council a lot of credit for being accountable and accepting responsibility,\u201d Jernberg said.<\/p>\n

District 1 Councilwoman Christy Martinez-Garcia said she was glad citizens were being engaged and getting involved.<\/p>\n

\u201cWe want to make sure that we\u2019re listening and we hear you. If you don\u2019t believe that we didn\u2019t listen, I think it\u2019s evident,\u201d she said.<\/p>\n

The city received 292 permits during the few weeks the revised ordinance was in place. A city spokesperson said they are working out details on if those permit holders will receive refunds.<\/p>\n

Copyright 2025 KCBD. All rights reserved.<\/p>\n","protected":false},"excerpt":{"rendered":"LUBBOCK, Texas (KCBD) – The Lubbock City Council reversed a decision made last month to change the city\u2019s…\n","protected":false},"author":2,"featured_media":8407,"comment_status":"","ping_status":"","sticky":false,"template":"","format":"standard","meta":{"footnotes":""},"categories":[16],"tags":[7975,18001,18008,18010,992,18006,7985,18007,7981,18003,168,170,169,18000,18014,18004,3686,17999,18013,18011,3960,18002,17997,17998,14588,18012,18005,18009],"class_list":["post-25578","post","type-post","status-publish","format-standard","has-post-thumbnail","category-lubbock","tag-alarm","tag-apologizes","tag-brayden-rose","tag-christy-martinez-garcia","tag-city","tag-clint-overland","tag-council","tag-david-glasheen","tag-false","tag-jennifer-wilson","tag-lubbock","tag-lubbock-headlines","tag-lubbock-news","tag-mistake","tag-monitored","tag-neal-barron","tag-ordinance","tag-outcry","tag-party","tag-permit","tag-public","tag-reinstate","tag-reverses","tag-revert","tag-system","tag-third","tag-tim-collins","tag-tonya-jernberg"],"_links":{"self":[{"href":"https:\/\/www.newsbeep.com\/us-tx\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/posts\/25578","targetHints":{"allow":["GET"]}}],"collection":[{"href":"https:\/\/www.newsbeep.com\/us-tx\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/posts"}],"about":[{"href":"https:\/\/www.newsbeep.com\/us-tx\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/types\/post"}],"author":[{"embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/www.newsbeep.com\/us-tx\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/users\/2"}],"replies":[{"embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/www.newsbeep.com\/us-tx\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/comments?post=25578"}],"version-history":[{"count":0,"href":"https:\/\/www.newsbeep.com\/us-tx\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/posts\/25578\/revisions"}],"wp:featuredmedia":[{"embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/www.newsbeep.com\/us-tx\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/media\/8407"}],"wp:attachment":[{"href":"https:\/\/www.newsbeep.com\/us-tx\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/media?parent=25578"}],"wp:term":[{"taxonomy":"category","embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/www.newsbeep.com\/us-tx\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/categories?post=25578"},{"taxonomy":"post_tag","embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/www.newsbeep.com\/us-tx\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/tags?post=25578"}],"curies":[{"name":"wp","href":"https:\/\/api.w.org\/{rel}","templated":true}]}}