About 100,000 calls for police a year in Bend. Fifty-five patrol officers and another 100 or so staff. And nobody thinks Bend is just going to stop growing.

Those numbers are rough, inexact. Still, Bend’s new Police Chief Mike Krantz looks at the numbers and knows he has a challenge.

Simple numbers aren’t the only things that matter. The nature of a call can make a vast difference if it takes an officer 30 minutes at a scene or if it keeps all the department’s detectives busy for days, such as the recent double homicide on NE 12th Street. Officers also need better training in de-escalating incidents. Some calls demand more of a mental health response than a conventional police response. And hiring practices need to ensure a diverse workforce.

Krantz does not believe there is a single metric to look to find the right level of service for Bend. Still, Bend’s growth and tourism will mean his department will need to find the right way to grow. It’s just too early for Krantz to say what that will be.

In an interview with The Bulletin’s editorial board, he told us he doesn’t get a report every morning with a detailed list of every crime that occurred the day before. That would be burrowing too deeply into minutiae. He does get briefed on the more significant issues and crimes, such as those that fall under Oregon’s Measure 11. He will take a more comprehensive look at the data and come up with a data-driven plan to best match his resources with the needs and desires of the community.

In his first weeks in his job, Krantz told us he has been meeting with various members of the community to build that understanding. He is planning on renewing the department’s citizen advisory board. It will be a formal way to get feedback and share information. He is hoping to get people on that committee who are connected to larger groups, so the committee’s reach will have a multiplier. His goal is to have it up and running in the next 180 days.

His biggest challenge, so far, came just days after he started — the ICE bus standoff. Krantz said there are things his department can learn from a closer look at its response. It is not a kind of event that has been common in Bend. But he believes his department did respond appropriately. If you have glanced at some reaction to the incident, you will know that some people wish Bend police would have actively broken up the protest and allowed the buses to leave. There are others who wish Bend police would have somehow directly intervened on behalf of the two people who were rounded up by ICE. To be clear, neither of those extremes would have been a legal option for Bend police.

When Krantz was 12, his bike was stolen. He worked with the police to get it back. That made a big impression on him. He didn’t take a straight-line path from there to becoming a police officer. But as he described it to us, it seemed about as straight as such things get.

Krantz’s path now is not easy. A new job. A new town. Fight crime. Improve and reform policing. Build trust. There are assumptions about Bend police because of things happening elsewhere. And there will almost inevitably be incidents in Bend where police or members of the community wish they were handled differently. We are counting on Krantz, though, to do more than build on former Chief Jim Porter’s excellent work. Why shouldn’t Bend’s department always aim to be a model for the country?