Editing Garner, North Carolina (section)

== Government ==
===City Council and City Manager===
Garner currently operates under a [[council–manager government]] whereby the Town Council is the publicly elected legislative body of the town, and appoints a Town Manager to manage the administrative operations of the town.  The Town Council consists of the Mayor and five Town Council Members, one of whom serves as Mayor "Pro Tempore." The composition of the Garner City Council, as of 2024, are as follows:<ref name="council2024">{{cite web |title=Mayor and Council Members {{!}} Town of Garner, NC |url=https://www.garnernc.gov/government/town-council/town-council-members |website=www.garnernc.gov |access-date=January 20, 2024 |language=en}}</ref>

* Buddy Gupton, Mayor
* Elmo Vance, Council Member, Mayor Pro-Tem
* Kathy Behringer, Council Member
* Demian Dellinger, Council Member
* Phil Matthews, Council Member
* Gra Singleton, Council Member

Town Manager: Jodi Miller since May 2024 to present

===City Police Department===
As of 2019, the Garner Police Department has 68 sworn police officers and 10 professional staff personnel (including full-time and part-time staff) to provide law enforcement services to a town roughly 16 square miles in area with a permanent residential population of over 31,000 citizens.<ref>{{Cite web|date=2019|title=Garner Police Department 2019 Annual Report|url=https://view.joomag.com/garner-police-department-2019-annual-report-published-august-2020/0241607001597170522?short&|access-date=February 19, 2021}}</ref> The Department is divided into two bureaus—the Operations Bureau and the Administration Bureau.

Lorie Smith, a captain in the Garner Police Department since 2017, and interim chief since the October 1, 2022, retirement of Joe Binns, was officially promoted to the position of Garner police chief.  Smith was formally sworn in on December 21, 2021.

===Library===

Garner's library service began in 1928 and was formed by the Garner's Women's Club, which operated and staffed the library with volunteer workers <ref>{{Cite web|url=https://www.garnernc.gov/about-us/overview-of-town-history|title = A Brief Town History &#124; Town of Garner, NC}}</ref>

Today, Garner's [[public library]] is the Southeast Regional Library, which is a regional facility operated by Wake County Public Libraries.<ref>{{Cite web|url=http://www.wakegov.com/libraries/locations/ser/Pages/default.aspx|title = Southeast Regional Library}}</ref> The library offers Wake County Public Library's child and adult services, which include storytimes, adult craft programs, computer use, and other free activities for the community.<ref>{{Cite web|url=http://www.wakegov.com/libraries/services/Pages/default.aspx|title=At Your Service}}</ref> In 2020, as part of Wake County Public Library's Fine Free program, Southeast Regional Library has stopped collecting fines for books that are returned late.<ref>{{Cite web|url=https://askwcpl.wakegov.com/faq/279751#:~:text=Effective%20January%201%2C%202020%2C%20WCPL,to%20our%20collections%20and%20services.|title = I heard the library is "late fee free." What does this mean? - AskWCPL}}</ref>

In June 2020, Southeast Regional Library began offering Wake County's Books on the Go program, a contactless book retrieval service that allows patrons to request and receive books from the library while it is closed due to COVID-19 <ref>{{Cite web|url=http://www.wakegov.com/libraries/reading/Pages/booksonthego.aspx|title = WCPL Books on the Go}}</ref>