Sartell Police Chief Silgjord Is Now City’s Public Safety Director

SARTELL (WJON News) -- Two Sartell departments are being combined under one umbrella as part of the city's organizational restructuring. The Police Department and Fire Department are being combined under the new Public Safety division. Police Chief Brandon Silgjord will now be the Public Safety Director and oversee both the police and fire departments.

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Silgjord says the change has been in the works for a while and they are modeling it after what the state does:

"The state of Minnesota has a Minnesota Department of Public Safety and a single commissioner overseeing that and it kind of drives a little bit of the mentality and philosophy behind it, all of our, a lot of our police and fire grant programs and different directions, and state mandates, and state information comes through a single source both in the police and fire world."

Silgjord says 12 other Minnesota cities already follow the Public Safety model and they will still have two deputy directors one for fire and one for police:

"I think the best way to maybe capture it is the outward and upward communication will come from that director position that I'm in now and then the downward and inward communications and initiatives will come from those two deputy director roles to think about like that of how our workflow will look."

He says a lot of things like code enforcement, rental inspections, fire inspections, and crime-free housing initiatives will all live under the Public Safety umbrella because there was already so much crossover between them.

Silgjord says it will take time to blend the two departments but the change will be subtle and the public won't even notice it. The city updated several other job titles and descriptions as part of the organizational restructuring.

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