GARDEN CITY, Idaho — The Garden City Police Department swore in its new chief of police Monday evening.
Cory Stambaugh has been in law enforcement in the Treasure Valley for 28 years. He's spent the majority of that time with Garden City Police, most recently serving as a lieutenant and the interim chief of police.
The experience means Stambaugh is very familiar with the growing community – and its growing needs.
"I just think [Garden City] has become that destination where people want to live, work and play, and that's way different than it was in 1995 when I started here," Stambaugh said.
One of Stambaugh's top priorities is to keep the police department up to speed with Garden City's growth. He said the department will continue on the track that former police chief Rick Allen started of retaining the right people.
The Garden City Police Department has 27 sworn officers and 36 people total, including support staff.
"We have the same issue with recruiting, and we want to recruit the right people and keep the right people, so we want to continue to do that. But one of the challenges we have is with the new growth and the different kinds of growth that we've never policed before," Stambaugh said. "So, we have to make sure that we try to project and plan ahead so we have the correct number of people to provide our services. Traffic is going to increase, and we just have to make sure that as the needs of the citizens change, we change and we police for what they need."
A changing city, changing needs – but the same commitment to service.
"Our staff is full of great people who are committed to our service model and to the citizens," Stambaugh said. "We have a great community that supports us and we have a good relationship with – and not just our community of the citizens of Garden City – but we service a lot of other citizens, because there's a lot of people that travel through Garden City, either on Glenwood or Chinden."
Not just serving other citizens, but helping to serve various communities through partnerships with other Treasure Valley law enforcement agencies. Police chiefs from several other departments were in attendance as Chief Stambaugh was sworn in on Monday.
"The good thing that we have here with the agreements we have in place and the working relationships is the citizens don't care who responds when they call, they just want us to respond," Stambaugh said. "So, Boise can be busy and we'll help, vice versa. We'll help the county, Eagle. The citizens have a high level of service from all of us, because we all work very well together."
Stambaugh had been serving as Garden City's interim chief of police since former police chief Rick Allen retired in July.
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