After increasing issues in recent years with public intoxication, including minors, fights, and other disruptive behavior, the city of McCall is spending about $27,000 to bring more than a dozen private event security staff to the city's Fourth of July celebration this year. The additional staff is largely expected to be a deterrent, said city Police Chief Dallas Palmer.
"I do think it will have a positive impact, I do think it will help minimize some of this strain on [law enforcement] resources," he said.
When dealing with juveniles, police have to find a responsible adult in order to release a minor after intervening in a situation or issuing a citation. Palmer said it takes considerable time and effort to locate responsible adults, who, in some cases, are not even in McCall with their teenage children. He said parental supervision could also help lower incident rates during the busy holiday weekend.
Alcohol was banned at McCall’s public Independence Day celebrations in 2016, a decision made permanent in 2023. The ban covers the city's beachfront parks. An alcohol ban for the holiday weekend is also in place for North Beach park in Ponderosa State Park, enforced by Valley County and State Parks and Recreation.
A city spokesperson told Boise State Public Radio the cost for additional private security was covered by event sponsors and existing funding, and no part of the celebration had to be reduced to afford it. But McCall is treating this year's private security as a pilot program, and may explore different funding measures in the future, including tax revenue, to help pay for that and other rising costs related to the popular holiday celebration.
McCall Police Chief Dallas Palmer joined Boise State Public Radio's Morning Edition to discuss the change this year.
Read the full transcript below:
OPPIE: The 4th of July is coming up, and that's when thousands of people descend on McCall for a 4th of July celebration, an annual fireworks. It's been that way for years and things got a little unruly last year. I was there with my family, and the vibe, suffice to say, was a little uncomfortable for myself and my my elementary school kids. Chief Dallas Palmer has noticed that as well. Chief of McCall police, he's here with us this morning to talk about some changes coming to the 4th of July celebration in McCall. Good morning chief.
PALMER: Yeah. Good morning Troy. Thanks for having me. I appreciate it.
OPPIE: Yeah. Glad you're here. Give us the lowdown. I guess first on what is changing this year in McCall.
PALMER: I would tell you that you certainly, I think, observed it correctly last year. Over the last few years, we've seen quite the increase in minor consumption issues. Some of our fight related vandalism littering a lot, just really the alcohol type related activity that's starting to cause quite an impact over our 4th of July weekend. So for this coming year, we're taking an approach of prevention where we want to ensure that the public safety is great for our community and for those visiting. And so our legacy beach setting is really our primary Liberty Fest setting for the 4th of July holiday. Uh, so we're taking an approach of a more controlled environment where we're bringing in a company called MAV Event Services that we're partnering with and utilizing them as a resource to help deter criminal activity within that downtown setting, to help, uh, work with law enforcement to ensure that we're able to provide greater awareness to our community members and our visitors to that area. Um, and making sure that those utilizing that area are aware of that so that we can have a safer and more controlled environment for a lot of the individuals that want to enjoy the 4th of July holiday within our Liberty Fest setting.
OPPIE: Many of our listeners will probably know is a regular security participant at Boise State Games, major concert venues, event settings around the Treasure Valley and elsewhere. How much larger is that going to make? Not your staff, but essentially the security and public safety staff as part of this event?
PALMER: Yeah, I'll tell you, we're bringing in a team of 15 personnel from MAV that includes some of their supervisors that will be present to help run that event. So we felt that utilizing their services would provide a great benefit to our community and really fill the gap of what we're looking to fulfill in that downtown core, specifically legacy park setting. Uh, and really to help ensure that our police services aren't fully consumed by that environment alone, but are available to the remainder of the community as well.
OPPIE: How is enforcing these rules different when you're talking about, you know, college age kids and folks in their 20s versus, uh, 15 to 19 year olds.
PALMER: You're dealing with minors versus adults, right? And any time, uh, law enforcement's interacting with minors in a criminal setting, uh, we have a requirement to, uh, make contact with a, an adult. Uh, it just consumes resources in a greater way. Sometimes you're dealing with a younger individual that might be a little bit less reasonable in an intoxicated manner. So it just adds a bit of an increase of difficulty in reasoning with some of these folks that we work with during that time. But the main factor is we're spending hours consuming, uh, law enforcement resources, trying to get in contact with parents to advise them of, hey, here's what we're dealing with, with your child. Uh, and we need you to come pick up your child or provide us an adult that we can release your child to. It takes a lot of time to, uh, either get in touch with them or get them to our location where we can then release the child to them.
OPPIE: And that work sounds like it is exclusively police work. Can having private security personnel help alleviate some of what you have to do when you're dealing with minors?
PALMER: Yeah. Uh, I mean, the, the ultimate solution within the whole, you know, the whole setting would be parental supervision, right. And really preventing the juvenile criminal activity taking place from the get go. I do think there's a preventative factor that comes into play there where, uh, their presence within our legacy beach setting, that downtown core area where we deal with a lot of these incidents over our 4th of July weekend. Their simple presence there will help eliminate that activity from taking place from the get go. So I do think it'll have a positive impact. I do think it will help minimize some of this great strain on resources. It's still going to require a lot of McCall police departments. Um, you know, individual officer involvement in resolving most of these issues.
OPPIE: Dallas Palmer is chief of police in McCall. I want to wish you a safe, first of all, but a happy and enjoyable 4th of July holiday there. I hope all things go well.
PALMER: Yeah. Troy, same to you. And, uh, definitely appreciate your time. And we're looking forward to, uh, a real awesome, uh, 4th of July holiday weekend here in McCall, Idaho.
