ELBERTA, Ala. — The Elberta Police Department added an officer to their ranks, Brandon Thompson, bringing the department’s total up to seven sworn officers, according to Police Chief Gary Peaden.

Thompson, who previously served as a reserve officer, was hired by the department May 22, and then attended basic training academy in Montgomery for 12 weeks, graduating September 12, Peaden said. 

The academy training included “intense physical training and intense academic training,” Peaden said, noting that “every facet of police training was covered.”

Mayor Clark S. Cathey recently swore in Thompson — the final action for hiring a municipal police officer — at the September 18, Elberta regular council meeting. 

“Crime has been a little on the quiet side,” Peaden said.  “We’re not really involved in any serious investigations.”

Elberta’s police jurisdiction, the one-and-a-half mile area outside the town’s corporate limits and also any annexed land that may not be within that area, has greatly expanded over the past few months, Peaden said.

The town annexed land near County Road 32, just outside Summerdale’s former police jurisdiction, and the Elberta Police Department will now be patrolling much of County Road 83 up to its intersection with 32, Peaden said. 

Summerdale Town Council voted to withdraw patrols from its police jurisdiction late June, citing a lack of revenue for adequate police resources, and the Elberta Police Department has been patrolling parts of that area, and also Foley’s police jurisdiction – near Elberta - since Foley Town Council also voted to withdraw patrols. 

“We now get quite a few calls in areas where we never received calls before,” Peaden said, and the department will be “evaluating personnel needs” over the course of the year and next year.

“We take it seriously and we need to have the appropriate number of officers,” he said.

The proposed bridge that will connect Orange Beach to Josephine - the northern limit of Wolf Bay - will also determine how the department handles a greater amount of traffic, population and the possibility of the crime that comes with it. 

“With all the development down there that is going to happen, we will see a substantial change never seen before (by the department) in terms of population and traffic,” Peaden said.  In the “next decade or so, I see that area exploding.”

Nearly 2,000 acres remain undeveloped along northern Wolf Bay, according to reports.