Opelousas, La. (KLFY) — In Opelousas, Police Chief Graig LeBlanc is looking for members of the community to work with the police department by joining the community relations board.

“Tomorrow we’re going to have our first community relations forum in order to develop our community relations board,” LeBlanc said. “We’ll be discussing matters that concern the community, and gather ideas of what exactly we want this board to look like.”

LeBlanc said the mission of the meeting and the creation of the community Relations board is to create more communication between the police department and Opelousas residents. To better understand each other and move forward as a team.

“We want it to be a board that gives the community and the citizens of Opelousas a seat at the table, where we can better build together,” LeBlanc said. “Letting them know where we stand and where we would like to see the police department, but also giving them some say on which way they would like to see the police department move.”

LeBlanc said involvement from the community is going to play a major role in making the city safer moving forward. He says the more residents involved, the safer the community will be.

“Without them, the police department cannot effectively bring calm to the city,” LeBlanc said. “What’s going to keep violent crime reduced is the community and the community outreach. We want them to know that we’re here, we care about this community. We want to give them the opportunity to come in and understand why law enforcement does what it does, and at the same time we want to hear what can law enforcement do better.”

Anyone planning to attend the community meeting can go to the Spirit of Elijah Life Institute Church on February first at 6 p.m.