Public Safety Means More Than Policing — A Complete Community Safety Plan for 54B
Every campaign season, somebody puts "public safety" on a yard sign. It is two words, and everybody agrees with them. That is exactly the problem. Two words do not tell you what anybody would actually do.
So here is what I mean when I say it.
Public safety is the officer who shows up at two in the morning. It is also the social worker who rides along with that officer, the fire crew that gets to a rural call in time, the paramedic who is still on staff next year, and the program that keeps a teenager from ever needing any of them. Those are not competing priorities. They are one system, and when any piece of it is underfunded, every other piece absorbs the load.
Start with the officers, because they are carrying calls nobody trained them for
Ask anyone who wears a badge in Scott County what has changed most about the job, and the answer is not what you would expect. It is how much of the work is now mental health work.
The state built a good tool for that. Minnesota's 988 Lifeline answered more than 130,000 calls, texts and chats in 2025 alone — a 48 percent jump over the year before — and more than 370,000 contacts since the line launched in July 2022. Demand has climbed every single year it has existed. [Minnesota Department of Health, July 21, 2026]
But a phone line only helps if somebody can actually go. That is where Scott County is genuinely ahead of the state, and I do not think enough people here know it.
The model already works here. It should not have to survive on hope.
Scott County's Coordinated Response program started in 2023 by embedding trained mental health professionals with the Sheriff's Office, the county jail, and the Shakopee and Savage police departments. In June 2025, it expanded to every law enforcement jurisdiction in the county. In 2025, it took 1,000 referrals from law enforcement partners, connected with and served 828 people in a mental health crisis, and engaged 205 people inside the county jail. The Minnesota Department of Human Services named it one of ten Commissioner's Circle of Excellence award recipients statewide. [Shakopee Police Department 2025 Annual Report; Scott County 2025 Residents Report]
The numbers underneath that are the ones that stopped me. Shakopee Police Chief Jeff Tate reported that his department answered 85 calls for one single individual in 2023. After a coordinated responder worked with that person to connect them to services, the calls dropped to 4 in 2024. In another case, 27 calls to one home over October and November went to zero after the team intervened. [Scott County 2025 Residents Report]
Read that again as a budget question. Eighty-five squad responses became four. That is not softness on public safety. That is the same officers freed up for the calls only officers can take — and a person who stopped cycling through the worst night of their life over and over.
At the Legislature, my job on this is not to reinvent it. It is to make sure a program that works in Scott County is not funded one year and forgotten the next. Mobile crisis and co-responder work has too often been paid for with one-time money, which is how you end up asking a county to build a permanent service on a temporary appropriation. I will push for stable, ongoing funding so counties can hire, train, and keep these people rather than rebuilding the team every biennium.
Fire and EMS are the part nobody notices until it is their driveway
If you live in Jackson, Louisville, Sand Creek, or Spring Lake Township, you already know the drive out here is longer. Rural and small-city emergency services across Minnesota are running short-handed. The state fire marshal's office spent 2026 reviewing fire service capacity as departments statewide reported trouble filling both paid and volunteer slots. [KSTP, June 1, 2026; KTTC, June 9, 2026]
The Legislature has recognized the problem — roughly $30 million in emergency aid went out to struggling EMS services after the 2024 session, and lawmakers restructured the state's EMS oversight and created an Office of Emergency Medical Services. [Minnesota EMS Task Force report to the Legislature, 2024; KAXE, April 2, 2026] That aid was real, and it was one-time. Providers said plainly at the time that it bought breathing room, not a solution.
Response time is the whole ballgame in cardiac arrest and in a house fire. I want a funding structure for fire and EMS that a township can plan around — recruitment and retention support, fair reimbursement, and shared regional resources so a small department is not competing with a metro department for the same paramedic.
Prevention is not the soft option. It is the cheap one.
Minnesota did something in the last few years that almost nobody expected: overdose deaths actually went down. Statewide drug overdose deaths fell 26 percent from 2023 to 2024, from 1,338 to 994, with Greater Minnesota counties down 31 percent and metro counties down 23 percent. [Minnesota Department of Health, 2024 statewide trends data update]
That did not happen by accident, and it is not finished — the monthly numbers have moved both directions since. [MDH monthly drug overdose deaths snapshot] But it is proof that the boring, unglamorous work — naloxone in more hands, treatment that people can actually get into, prevention in schools — changes the number of families who get the phone call.
The same logic applies to domestic violence. Advocacy services, orders for protection, and a place to go are a public safety infrastructure. When they are not there, the call comes to law enforcement anyway — later, and worse.
What I will actually do
Fund what already works. Ongoing, predictable state funding for co-responder and mobile crisis teams, so Scott County's model is permanent instead of provisional.
Back the people who answer the call. Recruitment, retention, and mental health support for officers, deputies, firefighters, and EMS — including the volunteers who make rural coverage possible at all.
Fix the rural response gap. A fire and EMS funding structure that townships and small cities can plan around, not another round of one-time aid.
Pay for prevention. Treatment access, school-based mental health, and domestic violence services, because every one of those is cheaper and better than the emergency that follows.
Judge it by results. Response times, repeat-call volume, overdose deaths, and whether departments are actually fully staffed — reported publicly, not promised in a campaign.
The test I would ask you to use
When any candidate tells you they support public safety, ask them a follow-up: which part, and with what money? Everybody supports the officer. Fewer people will tell you who is riding along with them, who is covering the township at 3 a.m., and what happens to the person after the squad car pulls away.
I would rather answer the harder question. Safe communities are not a slogan we agree on. They are a system we either fund or we do not.
If you or someone you know is in a mental health crisis, call or text 988 anytime. Scott County residents can also reach mobile crisis services directly.
— Chris
Sources
Every number in the article, in the order it appears.1. Minnesota Department of Health, “988 Minnesota Lifeline sees four years of increased calls,” news release, July 21, 2026 — health.state.mn.us/news/pressrel/2026/lifeline072126.html; and 988 Minnesota Lifeline Data (130,000+ contacts in 2025, a 48% increase over 2024).2. Shakopee Police Department 2025 Annual Report, Coordinated Response Unit page — 2025 referrals (1,000), individuals served (828), jail engagements (205), countywide expansion in June 2025, DHS Commissioner’s Circle of Excellence Award (one of ten statewide).3. Scott County 2025 Residents Report, scottcountymn.gov — Coordinated Response launched 2023; Shakopee Police Chief Jeff Tate on the 85-calls-to-4 and 27-calls-to-zero cases; DHS Deputy Commissioner Nikki Farago presented the award at a February county board meeting.4. KSTP, “Minnesota volunteer firefighter shortage could raise your taxes,” June 1, 2026; KTTC, “Minnesota fire marshal reviews state fire services amid firefighter shortage,” June 9, 2026.5. Emergency Medical Services Task Force Report to the Legislature, August 2024 (EMSRB restructuring, Office of EMS); KAXE, “Rural EMS crews in MN juggle 911 calls, critical aid push,” April 2, 2026 ($30 million approved in 2024).6. Minnesota Department of Health, “Statewide Trends in Drug Overdose: 2024 Data Update” — 26% statewide decrease, 1,338 to 994 deaths; Greater Minnesota −31%, metro −23%. Monthly Drug Overdose Deaths Snapshot for later trend.
