The Mandeville Police Department is coming to a Mandeville street near you.

The department has formally implemented its new and improved community-policing program.

Under the new program, officers are now assigned to specific areas of the city. The officers will patrol within their districts unless another officers requires backup. The community policing technique is accepted by law enforcement agencies nationwide as the most efficient method of policing, Chief Tom Buell said.

Although his department primarily operated the community policing method in the past, there was never any move to formally implement the program.

“We gradually got away from it after Katrina but now we’re putting more emphasis on it,” Buell said.

This will allow officers to become acquainted with the community members he or she serves by going door-to-door meeting the residents, and getting better informed with problems in their areas.

“The whole idea is to work on getting a solution to the problems,” Buell said. Instead of multiple officers handling the same calls, the assigned officers will address and solve the recurring problems in his district, Buell said.

“It will also allow the community to get to know the officers in their district so they feel comfortable calling that officer whenever there’s a problem,” Buell said.

The program went into effect immediately and so far Buell said he’s had mixed responses from his officers, but he’s hopeful they will become more accustomed with the new procedure. The officers will be assigned to their districts indefinitely, Buell said.

Along with the assigned districts, Buell and community police officer Eric Gulino have developed a community policing problem identification/solution report.

The report is basically a binder with three sections labeled open cases, cases that need referring and follow-up cases.

Whenever an officer encounters a new case, they will document it in the appropriate place in the binder.

This new policy will help identify and solve chronic problems, Gulino said.

The final component to the community-policing program will be a survey form that will be randomly distributed to citizens for feedback on the new policing efforts.

Buell plans to use multiple means to distribute the surveys including linking it to their Web site. That will likely begin sometime early next year, Buell said.

The community policing program comes after an external, independent report released by the Metropolitan Crime Commission on the Mandeville Police Department earlier this year found many inconsistencies in policies and procedures within the department.

The 58-page report, conducted by retired Louisiana State Trooper Lt. Col. Frank Tridico, credits the department with maintaining a safe and secure environment with a relatively low crime rate. It also states the 55 employees serving the department, both officers and support personnel, are listed as being dedicated professionals.

However, the report lists the PD as lacking some key criteria essential to creating an agency of excellence.

“The MPD must have solid written policies and procedures, mission accomplishment and as its cornerstone, leadership,” Tridico said in his report.

Tridico found the department employing a combination of the obsolete traditional and team policing methods.

Tridico’s report also found the department’s employee manual to be out of date.

A committee is currently in place updating the manual, Buell said.