The Brook Park Caucus voted unanimously to place on next week’s council agenda an ordinance authorizing the police chief to trade in unclaimed or forfeited weapons no longer needed by the Brook Park Police Department and to declare an emergency.

The ordinance matters because the police department has accumulated an inventory of weapons that must be stored, processed and—when legally released—disposed of in a way that returns value to the department rather than leaving unusable property taking space in evidence storage.

Mayor Orcutt introduced the item to the Safety Committee, saying Chief Ed Powers had led an inventory effort and that “there’s approximately, I think, 50, different guns that the chief is looking to trade in for credit with Vance Outdoors.” Chief Powers told council the items include weapons taken in as evidence or forfeited over many years and that legal processes must be followed before disposal: courts must release property, the department must run checks to confirm items are not stolen or tied to active cases, and the city must publish notices so owners can reclaim property. “We have to run wetlands checks on them to make sure that they're not stolen or been used in a crime,” the chief said, and staff have broken the work into smaller batches because of volume and timing constraints.

Councilman Dufour moved to place the ordinance on next week’s council agenda; Councilman Mancini seconded. The roll call on that motion recorded the following votes: Councilman Dufour — yes; Councilman Mancini — yes; Councilman McCorkle — yes; Councilman Scott — yes; Councilman Troyer — yes; Councilman Roberts — yes; Councilman Poindexter — yes. The motion passed.

Mayor Orcutt and Chief Powers said the trade-in would be arranged with Vance Outdoors, the firearms vendor the department uses, and that trades would produce store credit rather than cash: “They will give us credit towards…they're turned in and then exchanged for other weapons,” the chief said. Council members noted proceeds would return to the police department for safety-related purchases.

No ordinance text was read into the record at the meeting; council placed only the ordinance on a future agenda for formal consideration. There was no vote at this meeting to adopt the ordinance itself.

Next steps: the ordinance will appear on the council agenda for formal introduction and vote at the subsequent meeting.