Police Chief and City Manager Jason Ogden presented good news on the police department front during the City Council’s meeting held Tuesday, Jan. 13.
He praised Capt. Ryan Cummings for completing the FBI National Academy last Fall.
“It is really a prestigious and highly selective professional development program for law enforcement leaders around the world,” he said. “Sending him there, not only was it an honor, but it was a strategic investment for the citizens of Sweet Home.”
Ogden also presented statistics from last year from the Sweet Home Police Department.
Although person crimes (assaults, child neglect, kidnap, homicide, etc.) were down by 50 reported calls (or nearly 19%) compared to 2024, the number of assault calls were up by 37.
Reported property crimes (arson, criminal mischief, theft, etc.) were also down, by 123 calls. Burglary and criminal mischief each dropped by about 20 calls, fraud by 10 calls and theft by 60 calls.
Crimes against society (alcohol/drugs, animal, DUII, curfew, trespass, etc.) rose in 2025 from the previous year by 17 calls. More notable increases in this category include five more calls for disorderly conduct, five more calls for littering and 21 more calls for trespass.
Total arrests increased 12% and citations issued decreased 16%. Ogden noted, however, that traffic stops and citations are down because they had to pull the traffic officer to utilize him for staff shortages.
Related to that, during the council meeting Ogden swore in Leon Vineyard as the police department’s newest officer. Vineyard has been living in Sweet Home since 2009 and has been driving log trucks for 12 years. He will enter the police academy next month.
Tabs on air quality
Resident Gary Jarvis asked the council if the city would consider hosting an air quality monitor for the community.
He explained the Department of Environmental Quality recently removed its air quality monitoring system from the Sweet Home Fire and Ambulance District – a service, he said, that has been provided to the community for “as long as I can remember.”
“There are many of us that rely on that, those of us with asthma and other breathing issues that also get out and exercise and need to know what the air quality is like,” Jarvis said.
According to him, Albany is now the “official” monitoring site serving the Sweet Home area, which has a different elevation, air current and air quality than Albany. Springfield is the next closest monitor.
With some digging, he learned that anyone can have a monitor for $100 a year, and asked if the City of Sweet Home would be able to find funding for the project.
Fire Chief Nick Tyler told The New Era that the air monitoring station was placed at the station more than 20 years ago and he asked if it could be moved elsewhere.
“We have grown significantly in 20 years and the location of it was problematic for us in regards to training and utilizing our grounds,” Tyler said.
Ogden confirmed with The New Era that, following the council meeting, Deputy City Manager Cecily Pretty looked into the situation and learned that the monitoring system may be moving to a different location.
Eli Murphy, of DEQ, told The New Era they will be mounting a more compact system at the junior high school within the next two weeks, and will report air quality data directly to the DEQ AQI website just as the former site did.
Audit finds weakness for late submission
Finance Director Matt Brown reported the audit for 2022-2023 revealed two material weaknesses essentially concerning failure to submit audited financial statements in a timely manner.
More specifically, periodic account reconciliations were not performed in a timely manner, and the audited statement is being submitted a year late.
According to Brown, the failures are mainly due to the resignation of the city’s finance director during that fiscal year, and the previous fiscal year statements had not yet been submitted. As such, the city has been playing catch-up.
The council approved a mandated corrective action plan for the weaknesses.