Council approves police raises

Members of the Goldsboro City Council delivered on what was, for many of them, a cornerstone of their 2023 campaigns, by voting to increase the salaries of the men and women serving in the city’s Police Department.

The move officially adopted what has been known, since last summer, as “Plan A” — the raise recommended by GPD Chief Mike West to ensure he could compete with neighboring departments to make whole what has become a depleted and exhausted force amid a dramatic increase in gun violence across the city.

The previous council declined to approve Plan A in favor of a smaller increase that did not prevent more officers from defecting to other communities — leaving the GPD with fewer than 80 officers and without a fully-staffed gang prevention unit, selective housing unit, or vice squad.

Instead, West’s officers were, primarily, working patrol — unable to complete the preventative measures they said kept guns and drugs off the streets and violent crime at bay.

Many of those running for seats on the council stressed that they were not satisfied with the defeat of Plan A and vowed to pass it if elected.

Then, after gun violence data that reflected a jarring number of shots fired incidents and rounds fired in Goldsboro — each representing a nearly 50-percent increase from 2022 — was published Jan. 14 on NewOldNorth.com, the men and women elected to the board in November went on the record saying they were working toward the goal of getting the pay package across the finish line.

The community, however, lost its patience after a series of headlines — a 17-year-old shot to death on Hugh Street; a corpse found on Sunburst Drive; a group of teenagers engaging in a shootout inside Berkeley Mall.

And when the council voted to delay its decision on Plan A until its Feb. 12 meeting, officers sounded off — one telling New Old North they were “disgusted” by what they perceived as a lack of urgency and wanted the board to give the GPD a chance to take the fight to those in the city who were making local residents scared to go out in public.

“It kind of feels like a lot of these people got elected because they said they had our backs and it’s been what, six weeks or something since they were sworn in, and nothing,” the officer said. “Every meeting it’s, ‘We’re doing it the next meeting.’ I don’t want to say I’m done, but I’ve definitely lost faith.”

District 2 Councilman Chris Boyette, a former lawman who has banged the drum loudly for the GPD since before he was elected, hopes that now that the vote to adopt Plan A has been recorded, their faith has been restored — and order in the city will soon be, too.

“I’m beyond excited that we’re finally able to get this done, as I’ve been advocating for this from the beginning as Priority One,” he said. “As a former law enforcement officer, I look forward to law and order being restored in our community and making our residents feel safe again as our department is staffed back up.”