Demorest approves pact for police officer at elementary school, but start date remains unclear

Demorest City Council voted 4-0 on July 1, 2025, to approve an agreement with the Habersham County School District for a fully funded Demorest Police Department officer at Demorest Elementary School. The vote also authorized the mayor to sign the agreement, described in city materials as a memorandum of understanding or intergovernmental agreement.

The action gives the city a formal role in providing a daily police presence at its elementary school and advances a broader partnership aimed at placing an officer at each school. For families, school staff and city residents, the practical stakes are how and when that planned presence will operate at Demorest Elementary—and under what completed agreement.

The agreement first appeared on the July 1 regular-session agenda as an item for council consideration. Earlier that day, during a working session, Police Chief Chastain and Patrick Franklin presented the proposed arrangement: a county partnership that would place a fully funded Demorest officer at the elementary school. After that discussion, the matter went to the regular meeting, where council unanimously approved it and authorized the mayor to execute it.

City officials presented the proposal as a partnership between Demorest and the county school district, with the stated goal of an officer at every school. Chief Chastain and Franklin were the officials identified in the working-session record as presenting the proposal. The council’s 4-0 vote showed unanimous support among the members recorded as voting; the minutes do not include a separate public objection, debate over the policy, or a detailed account of school district deliberations.

Council approval and the mayor’s authority to sign are completed acts. The planned fully funded position was the proposal approved by council, but the meeting records do not document a signed agreement, name the officer who would serve, or confirm that an officer has been deployed to Demorest Elementary. As a result, the vote establishes the city’s approval of the partnership, not a documented start of service at the school.

The next public marker would be a signed MOU or IGA, or a later city or school-district announcement or record identifying an assignment to Demorest Elementary. Until then, the effective date of the agreement, the officer selected and the date the school would begin receiving the planned police presence remain undecided or unrecorded in the city’s July 1 materials.