SLIDELL, La. — The St. Tammany Parish Sheriff's Office is trying to improve response times and increase visibility in the parish by moving into a new patrol station in Slidell. This comes as the population in the area continues to grow. According to the Census Bureau, close to 10 thousand people have moved to St. Tammany Parish from 2020 to 2022.
That's expected to keep on growing.
Sheriff Randy Smith said, "There's a lot of development, a lot of new subdivisions, not only commercial, but also residential areas going up in that area."
The old Vanguard Cosmetology School will soon be home to the new District 1 patrol station. The sheriff's office purchased that station back in August for $1.6 million.
It's a price Smith said was too good to pass up.
"We made an offer lower than the fair market value and we got it for about 1.6 million, which you couldn't even buy the property for that much less the building," Smith explained. "We just put out to bid the build out the way we want it designed."
The goal is to start renovations by January 2024. Once complete it will be staffed to capacity.
"We will have 51 patrol deputies assigned to that location," Smith said. "We will have detectives working out of that location that are normally stationed here in Slidell. We will also have some of our Marine Division, traffic division, and our crisis intervention team will be working out of that office as well."
The goal is to keep response times low, increase visibility in growing areas, and invest in the parish's future. Smith said he is committed to making sure every area of the parish is evenly protected.
"We've split the manpower to evenly have enough manpower to cover all St Tammany Parish, not just the busier area," Smith said. "So with that in mind, it continues to give us the response time that we need which is usually five minutes or less and that's pretty quick for an area our size and also the visibility of having the units out there in their areas of patrol to help determine crime from occurring in the first place."
Once the site is finished with renovations, the training facility will be moved to the Sheriff's Office's main administrative complex on Brownswitch Road, with a long-term plan to add an indoor shooting range. Right now construction on the third district office in Covington is almost complete.
Smith said this is all about investing in the future of St. Tammany Parish.
"Keeping up with the growth of St Tammany is very important and all this is to continue to not only build community trust, but also reduce our crime rate and keep the citizens of St Tammany Parish safe."