City Council honors police volunteers

There’s more than one way to be a VIP in Newport Beach.

Certainly, saving the city about $1 million over 10 years would be one way to do it. The other would be to be a literal VIP, or Volunteer in Policing.

At 7 tonight, Newport Beach City Council members will get to see an oversized payoff to a program they watched develop 10 years ago.

The Police Department’s Volunteer in Policing program, which uses ordinary volunteer citizens to take care of some of the mundane daily duties officers are assigned to perform, has saved an estimated $1 million in personnel costs since its inception in May 1999, officials said.

They’ll present a fake, large check for the total at tonight’s council meeting.

Since first kicking off, volunteers in Newport Beach have dedicated about 46,000 hours to helping authorities write tickets, do patrol checks on homes for people on vacation and do traffic control during major events in the city.

“They’re a great group of folks,” Lt. Craig Fox said.

All volunteers have to pass the citizen’s academy and pass a background check.

The recognition comes just days before National Volunteer Appreciation Week from Sunday to April 26.

— Joseph Serna