Last year, the Jefferson Police Department saw several changes in personnel.

Thirteen-year veteran Mark Clouse became police chief after former chief Dave Morlan left law enforcement to be the City of Jefferson’s public works director. Clouse then promoted Heath Enns to the rank of captain and Jason Kroeger to the rank of sergeant. Towards the end of the year, the City Council approved adding an eighth officer to the department.

“The addition of the eighth officer will be a great help. Not only will that spread some of the calls for service and case work around, it’ll give us an opportunity to go back to a little different structure as far as the department make up, which is a benefit to the City. It’s going to give us headed in the direction that I want our department to head and that’s proactivity.”

He points out that being a more proactive department will hopefully lead to stopping crimes before they start.

“That stops basically all the work of responding to a crime that has happened. And then from that point, trying to piece together all the things we do in law enforcement to get to that resolution at the end to a criminal charge. So if we can get out there and be seen and stop some crime before it’s occuring, benefits everyone.”

Clouse’s eighth officer, Caleb Jans, won’t be fully certified until after he graduates from the Iowa Law Enforcement Academy by the end of the year.