Shady Cove considers contract with sheriff

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Shady Cove is considering closing its police department and contracting with the county sheriff for law enforcement services.

The plan, discussed with residents at a town hall meeting Thursday, would establish a sheriff's office substation and replace Shady Cove's single police officer with several officers, Jackson County Undersheriff Rod Countryman told the City Council.

The city began considering the plan after its police chief retired over the summer, one of its three officers resigned to become a sheriff's deputy and another officer requested extended medical leave.

That left officer Scott Walden alone to patrol the city.

"I'm tired," Walden told the audience of about 50 people at Thursday's meeting. "I'm very tired."

Shady Cove is considering two options from the sheriff's office. The first would provide three full-time deputies, a supervising lieutenant or sergeant and administrative support, including payroll, record keeping and vehicle maintenance.

The second is the same, except it replaces one of the deputies with a community service officer who would not carry a weapon but would enforce city ordinances and conduct crime scene investigations.

The current Shady Cove police budget is $536,300, supplemented by a $15 monthly public safety fee that appears on residents' utility bills.

If the sheriff's contract is accepted by the city, Mayor Ron Holthusen said the contract's first option would cost $500,392 the first year, rise by nearly $100,000 the second year, and then drop to $566,541 in the third year. Most of the second-year increase represents the cost to purchase two patrol cars and contributions to a reserve fund for future vehicle purchases. The second option would be about $30,000 less each year.

By comparison, the projected cost of the current police department in three years is $637,850, partly because the city will need to replace aging vehicles.

If the city agrees to the contract, the sheriff's department would absorb current officers; however, reserve officers would not be hired.

Holthusen said the potential liability of an understaffed and overworked police department could be a "horrendous risk" to the city.

"If you're going to have a police department," he said, "you have to do it right. It's not something you can do on the cheap."

Walden said that even before he became the city's only on-duty police officer, the demands of a small department often put him, his fellow officers and the public in potential danger.

"We're off duty. We have a pager by the bed and we get paged out," he said. "I don't know about anyone else, but I wake up cloudy-headed, but I still have to respond to that emergency call."

Walden said on a recent call out he had to pat down a suspect for weapons.

"That night I made a mistake," he said. "I went to search the gentleman, and ended up missing a knife. I endangered the civilians, myself and everyone else in the area.

"I went over and over that in my mind, wondering how I could have done something like that, and all I could think about was fatigue. I was tired."

Although council members said they would like to keep the local department, they expressed doubt that the city could afford it.

Jim Ulrich, a retired police officer and city resident, told the council, "Pride in owning your own police department is a great luxury. I encourage you to think seriously, based on the current tax structure and the structure of this city, if owning our own department is a luxury we can afford."

Sheriff Mike Winters said any deputies assigned to the city would operate like a regular city police force, but with the advantage of being able to draw on the resources and expertise of the larger county department.

"If you give us a chance, we won't disappoint you," he said.

Writer Bill Miller lives in Shady Cove. Reach him at newsmiller@yahoo.com.

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