The Centre City Council has approved revised policies and procedures to accommodate up to 10 reserve police officers to fill the city’s safety needs. The reserve officers were approved during the Tuesday, Feb. 26 meeting of the council.

The city will be responsible for providing liability insurance and also the uniforms/clothing for the officers.

According to Centre Police Chief Kirk Blankenship, who started out in law enforcement as a reserve deputy himself, said these officers are required to qualify each year with handguns and are also free to attend training classes which the regular police officers attend.

“We have reserve deputy positions, a couple of ABI guys who are certified,” said Cherokee County Sheriff Jeff Shaver who attended the meeting. “It has worked out pretty well. We do background checks.”

“We try to maintain 10 positions through the reserve deputies association,” said Shaver. “We pay $100 to the reserve deputy association and that provides some insurance.”

Council Members Derrick Wheeler and Marc Johnson were pleased to report that the Cherokee County Commission recently agreed to give $12,500 in special funding to the Dixie Youth Baseball League.

“Last year we had 531 kids playing Dixie Youth baseball,” said Wheeler. “And less than 200 reside in Centre. It is a big county and they should help out. We also asked them to consider coming up with an amount they can come up with on a yearly basis.”

“I was excited about last night,” said Wheeler. “Maybe they can take a little burden off us. It shouldn’t be totally the city’s responsibility to fund all the youth programs. It is inside the county too.”

The council agreed to proceed with getting quotes for lighting of the newest field (four poles with 24 lights).

The council also agreed to send a thank you note to the commission to show appreciation for the county’s assistance.