FAIRMONT– The 2025 Fairmont Police Department annual report was recently released. While this is the 10th consecutive year a report has been released, it’s the first year it’s been released under the guidance of Chief Mike Beletti.

Beletti said that while the report would have ideally come out about a month sooner, transitions with staff pushed it back this year.

The report is 45 pages long and includes a wide range of information, which was complied by staff.

“This is really a collaborative effort. Several officers that are assigned to different areas in our agency contributed to the report itself which provides a real sense of ownership in the agency. They do leave a mark and a positive one,” Beletti said.

Of the report, he said, “It’s a good way to provide the community with a general insight of what goes on in the police department. Viewpoints can vary from person to person on what we actually do. It’s not simply responding to calls. It’s a lot of community involvement and community engagement.”

While as Beletti said, they do more than respond to calls, details about those calls are included in the report.

“This year we had a slight increase in calls for service, just over a 2 percent increase from the prior year,” he said.

In total, Fairmont police officers responded to 9,141 calls in 2025. The leading call types were traffic stops at 2,028, directed patrols at 652, animal complaints at 519 and parking complaints at 401.

As for the crime rate, there was a decrease of 5 percent from 2024. That’s coupled with some other good news for the community.

“The biggest area of increase was drug enforcement for drug arrests. It wasn’t huge but there were a handful, seven more arrests,” Beletti said.

This does not mean that there are more drugs in the area, but a higher level of enforcement which Beletti credits to a new generation of officers that have a special interest in enforcing drug laws.

“We need proactive officers out there monitoring the streets, working with community members to receive tips to really combat the issue,” Beletti said. “We have younger, eager officers proactivly working and that’s really helped and we anticipate that continuing.”

He noted that the Fairmont Police Department is a member of the Minnesota River Valley Drug Task Force, which provides them with dedicated investigators for drug activity. Beletti said that while the local department does work its own cases, they can also partner with another agency to work collaboratively.

Bios on the aforementioned new generation of officers are also included in the report. In 2025 the Fairmont Police Department hired three new officers on account of two retirements and one resignation. In early 2026, there was more shuffling as a result which led to some internal promotions, including Beletti becoming Chief following Mike Hunter’s late 2025 retirement.

The three biggest community outreach events, Fairmont Night Out, Shop with a Cop and Cops and Bobbers are also highlighted in the report.

“Those are our cornerstone events but those aren’t the only events that we do. We do cops and cones at Dairy Queen and coffee with cops when we’re invited to different places,” Beletti said.

There are also details of other successful programs induing Adopt a Cop.

“That’s huge. It’s been going for nine years now. We’ve seen those benefits pay off huge, just the interactions we’ve had with youth during those developmental years. They bring back such good stories to their family and friends about what they’ve learned from the officers,” Beletti said.

The report was presented to the Fairmont City Council at its meeting on Monday nights. It can be found under “helpful resources” on fairmontpolice.org.