After a memorandum of understanding on cost-sharing of crossing guard services between the city and the Roanoke Rapids Graded School District was nixed last month, the city attorney Tuesday put a new proposal on the table for the council to mull.

One thing that City Attorney Geoffrey Davis suggested during a meeting Friday with school administrators was that the city could possibly look at creating a traffic control officer position with up to three officers. “They’re not a law enforcement officer,” he said. “That’s going to trigger a couple of things. Number one, you’re not going to have to go through law enforcement retirement. We can use the traffic control statute Chief (Shane) Guyant brought forward to the council. It gives these individuals who aren’t law enforcement officers the color of authority to be out there in crosswalks to manage traffic.”

While the school system has maintained it would feel more comfortable with a law enforcement officer, Davis said the city responded, “(When) the motoring public pulls up into a crosswalk, are they really going to know whether that person has a law enforcement certification or not? They’re out there in a crosswalk and they’ve got (the recognition) of being a crossing guard, whether it’s a vehicle out there, some lights out there or they’re in some kind of uniform and they have that legal authority. I think that could be a solution and you’re looking at permanent employment versus you’ve got a signup sheet (as the police department does now) and it’s voluntary.”

Davis said the other aspect of this is if the city were to move forward with the proposal, it would supplement or replace the system already in place. “The school system is already paying those officers the hourly rate.”

Davis said he and City Manager Kelly Traynham discussed the part-time employment aspect. “The rate we’re paying somebody like that could be significantly lower. That’s good for the school because that means if the school is paying a hundred percent of that they’re actually paying less money than they are now. They’re getting somebody that’s got a lot better chance of being there currently.”

If the council, which took no action on the matter, were to agree, the person — or persons — hired would be a city employee, Davis said. “We’re going to have some liability there. My thinking is right now, comparing this to the liability we have now with a law enforcement officer out there, and something happens in their presence or an officer gets hit by a car, that’s going to be a worker’s comp claim.”

Conversely, the worker’s comp payment for a traffic control officer would be at the hourly rate they are being paid. “I think from a liability standpoint it actually reduces the city’s liability if we consider something in this kind of realm.”

Davis told the panel he presented the idea to get some feedback from them and then go to the school system and say, “We would try to help you resolve the situation. They’ll be our employees. They’ll be part-time. It’ll be a lower rate than what you’re paying now. They’ll be permanent. They’re guaranteed to be there and on our side, yes, we’ll have liability, but our liability is going to be less than what we’ve got now.”

Davis said the proposal could be a win-win. “Could the city say this is really the school’s problem? I don’t see where we have any liability. We don’t have any responsibility to provide crossing guards to cross the street anymore than we have any responsibility to have a law enforcement officer out on patrol. That’s something that the city chooses to do to keep its citizens safe and to provide public services.”

But, the attorney said, “When we have something like a school, I think we all agree that students in K through 12 are a more vulnerable population. There’s going to be a lot of heavy traffic around there those times of day, the kind of things where you want somebody that’s maintaining some sort of order. I do think the city has some interest in doing that with these schools geographically located in our city limits.”

Davis called the idea a germ of a proposal to get feedback and to get a consensus before going back before the school system. “Right now we’ve got a temporary fix in that the police chief and police department are going out of their way to make sure that these areas are covered. It’s difficult. Every time an officer gets injured, every time an officer goes on maternity leave, that’s another person we don’t have in one of these roles. Right now we’re making it work and I think we’re committed to doing that to the best of our abilities.”

He said now that the situation has arisen, the city needs to look at a more permanent solution for this “and I think this is leading towards some kind of solution.”

There is nothing written yet, Davis said, and if the council did move forward the proposal would have to come back before the panel with a memorandum of understanding.

Davis said Belmont is the biggest concern. “It’s the longest distance over that road. The nature of the approaches to Belmont is such that students are more vulnerable there and there’s more chances of things going wrong than would be at Manning or Chaloner. I think the idea would be if we did go down this road, it wouldn’t be something the city is committing to forever and forever. What I would envision is maybe an agreement with a year renewal so we could trial it so we could transition it to something maybe more permanent.”

Davis, in answering a question by Councilwoman Sandra Bryant on the bearing of costs, said he would propose that the school system reimburse the city for the full cost. “We would be accepting some liability for them in the event of something happening that we don’t want to happen. Because of the peculiar nature of law enforcement officers being off duty my thinking is our liability actually goes down under the scenario.”

Traynham told the council before Davis’s presentation that she, Captain Jeff Baggett and the attorney had a meeting Friday with school administrators on the matter. “They wanted to hear more about some alternatives and some other ideas that were out there and focus on addressing all the safety needs.”

She said she believes there are some temporary matters that need to be addressed immediately. “I feel like the dialogue between the two were very well received. We have a lot of interest in public safety for our students exiting and entering.”

Said Davis: “I think it was a very productive discussion. I was happy about the way the meeting went. We listened to their concerns and we shared our concerns with them. The Cross Safe proposal that was proposed to us would essentially have the city contributing financially to the provision of crossing guards.

“We had concerns doing that that not everyone who pays taxes to the city receives the benefit of these city schools. If there’s a financial contribution, maybe it’s better to come from those individuals who live in the district.”