“We’ve had our police chief retire and one of our young officers moved over to Pocahontas,” Laurens Mayor Rod Johnson said. “That left us with essentially no police force.”

For a time, the city has looked to the Pocahontas County Sheriff’s Office for law enforcement support while they search for a solution.

In the fall, the city did hire a new police chief, Johnson said, but he didn’t last very long.

“We were expecting him to be involved in hiring two new police officers and about a month after he started, he gave us his resignation,” he said. “He had been out of law enforcement for a time and he got back into it and maybe didn’t realize how much that had changed.”

So Laurens is back to square one in its efforts to stabilize the police department.

“This has taken a lot of our time in 2020 and a lot of effort in just trying to get a handle on the police situation,” Johnson said.

One of the things that Laurens didn’t have to worry about much in 2020 is the city infrastructure like roads, water and wastewater utilities. While other municipalities often have to undergo multi-million dollar upgrades or replacements, Laurens focuses on regular maintenance of those assets.

“I think that at least as I’ve been mayor, and prior to that I was on city council for a number of years, I think Laurens has been a city that has kept current on those kinds of things,” Johnson said.

In the last couple years, Johnson said, the city has done more in the area of improving roads and it continues to look at the situation every year.

“A few years ago, we had some streets that were pretty tough and we just made an effort to direct some funds that way and look for ways to get that done,” he said.

Prior to 2020, Johnson said, the city had been looking into developing infrastructure in a residential area the city had procured in the northeast part of town. The area had been privately owned and plotted out for development, but nothing ever advanced with it.

“The city had purchased it and had thoughts of developing that infrastructure,” Johnson said. “We had kind of gotten started down that road when COVID hit and it just kind of came to a standstill at that point.”

He said he expects in 2021, the city will revitalize that effort and look into bringing streets, sewers, water and utilities to build up that residential development.