Clear Lake City Council approves restarting Police Department’s K-9 program

CLEAR LAKE — The Clear Lake City Council last night approved restarting the Police Department’s K-9 program.

Money was allocated in the Fiscal Year 2026 budget to restart the program, with the funds covering the training and purchase agreement for a dual-purpose K-9 dog from Tree Town Kennels in Forest City for about $17,000.

Police Chief Mike Colby says the city has not had a K-9 program since 2020. He says the new dog would mostly be paid for by drug forfeiture funds and not new taxpayer money.  “The department has been very proactive in narcotics depression as you know for the last couple of years. We do have some money in our asset forfeiture account that would pay for the entirety of the dog purchase. The dog would be fully funded by seized funds from your local drug dealers. There’s no tax money coming out of citizens to pay for the dog program.”  The Cerro Gordo County Attorney’s office has also indicated a willingness to help fund the program.

Colby says the dog would not only signal if drugs were in a particular setting but do things as be an educational tool for the public to see, as well as help in missing persons cases.  “We’ve had missing kids. If you remember back to December or January, we had a gentleman who had Alzheimer’s and went missing and we searched for for several hours and found him a mile or so from his house in the dead of winter. This dog would have the ability to scent track somebody down and help us find those people. There’s other aspects of the program that will benefit the community other than just fighting narcotics, drug suppression, being an outreach tool, there’s a safety aspect with it in finding missing people as well.”

Besides approving the new K-9 dog, the council also approved assigning Officer Blaine Pavelka as the handler of the dog.