Wednesday, May 21, 2025–10:00 a.m.
-David Crowder, WRGA News-
The City of Rome’s Public Safety Committee has given its approval for a new police initiative called the Rome Bicycle Ambassador Patrol.
According to Assistant Rome Police Chief Rodney Bailey, as many as four ambassadors would be hired for downtown, the parks, and a trail system.
“That gives us a little more presence downtown, which is what we’re looking for, he said. “They would assist visitors or residents, and of course, the homeless, trying to connect them with services. That can answer any non-enforcement call for service, work on quality of life issues downtown, in the parks, and on the trails. They would basically be a set of eyes and ears for us.”
The ambassadors would be equipped with a police radio, but Bailey stresses they would not have arrest powers.
“Nothing on their uniforms will say police or security, it will just be ambassadors, and they will be a representative of the City of Rome and how we can serve,” he said. “It may be even giving directions or building relationships with downtown merchants or people who use the parks. They will be seeing what is going on out there and then reporting back, giving officers an opportunity to work on specific things that come up, saving time and resources.”
The ambassadors would be able to take incident reports for things like lost phones or a lost tag, taking some of the workload off of officers.
Although the ambassador program would be open to all, the hope is that it could attract potential new police officers by introducing them to public service.
“The police academy, which is run by the State of Georgia POST [Peace Officers Standards and Training] has increased the number of hours for mandate training for the police academy. So now, we can only get two classes a year, giving us about a six-month gap between classes. So, it is really hard to hire somebody or have an applicant come in, and they want to go to work as a police officer, and we have to tell them they have to wait six months. What we are trying to do is find something where we can connect those two dots together.”
According to Bailey, the starting pay for the job will be $41,000, and the ambassadors will be on e-bikes. If the program is approved by the full Rome City Commission, job postings will go up, possibly as early as June. Then the applicants will go through a hiring process, which would be similar to that for law enforcement and would include training.
Over a year ago, when discussions began regarding an ambassador program, the Rome Police Department was about 19 officers short of a full staff. That situation has improved with only about eight vacancies.