“We’re down significant numbers,” he said. “We’re down, I think, 28 officers.”

Degou agreed that the decline had caused problems for the police, especially when retirements come in large numbers.

“Last December, 12 police officers left and that caught us a little bit off guard,” he said. “They weren’t expected to leave, but they were given the opportunity to leave and they did.”

At the meeting, a group of residents decided they would write to the city council to ask for more police presence in their neighborhood and to get the police out of their cars and onto the streets.

But Degou said there is considerable police presence already in the area and that officers on foot might not be the best way to police the area.

“The eliminating of all the police vehicles, I don’t know if that’s practical,” he said. “We need a combination of foot patrol and motor vehicle patrol. I’m not sure it’s the most efficient manner to have everyone in the city on foot.”

But both sides said they were heartened by the discussion.

While the police would not discuss specific plans for providing the presence and visibility that the residents want, Degou said communication was the way to begin and that the department would talk over ways to help the community.

“We always discuss ways to improve our police department,” he said. “As soon as the commissioner comes back [from vacation] we’ll sit down and we’ll discuss a strategy and how we can best implement it.”

Adkins expressed cautious optimism that Tuesday’s meeting would improve relations between police and the community.

“It’s going to be an ongoing thing to bridge this gap between the police department and the rest of us to see what are the appropriate actions of a police department in a small city of only seven square miles,” he said.

—Staff writer Laura L. Krug can be reached at krug@fas.harvard.edu.