News and Opinion from Sisters, Oregon
News and Opinion from Sisters, Oregon
Concerns about containing costs fueled the final public hearing on a proposed police merger before the Sisters City Council Thursday, October 23.
Sheriff Greg Brown has proposed that the City of Sisters contract with the Deschutes County Sheriff's Department for police services. Under the contract, the sheriff's department would hire all of Sisters' current police officers.
The proposed arrangement would save the city about $43,000 the first year.
Indian Ford resident Howard Paine testified, citing the experience of Junction City, which contracted police services with the Lane County Sheriff's Department for about 10 years, ending in 1986 or 1987.
Paine reported that Junction City's 19-year veteran administrator, Bert Likens, told him that the main reason Junction City terminated its arrangement with the county was that the city could not control increasing labor costs resulting from union contract negotiations with Lane County officers.
Paine said that Likens indicated that police services and response time under the Junction City/Lane County contract were good.
Sheriff Brown observed that the sheriff's department operates under a four-year contract with its employees, avoiding rapid jumps in labor costs.
Brown also said that union/management relations are more cooperative in the wake of Senate Bill 750 which amended arbitration guidelines for police unions to require arbitrators to pick either a management package or a union package.
Brown believes the bill has made for more reasonable negotiations.
Given those conditions, Brown believes the department can keep up with cost of living increases and live within its budget without coming back to the city for more and more money.
Councilor Gordon Petrie called Brown on the carpet for earlier indicating that Junction City had not contracted police services.
"I'm going to chastise you a little bit and apply an acronym - M.O.M. - mine of misinformation," Petrie said.
Brown apologized for the error and said he had queried other officers about Junction City after Petrie asked him about it, and none of the officers remembered the 10-year-old arrangement.
Brown told The Nugget that he has discussed the system with officials in Linn County, which, he said, has a large number of cities currently under contract.
County residents in the Sisters area continued to express support for the merger, believing that having seven patrol officers in the Sisters area will increase coverage and reduce response time.
Ronda Sneva testified that she recently had an uneasy wait for deputies to respond to her report of a prowler at her home two miles outside the Sisters city limits.
"Twenty minutes is a long time to sit in your room with a six-year-old and wait for help," Sneva said.
The city council plans to hold workshops to discuss issues raised in the series of three public hearings on the merger.
Jim Cornelius is editor in chief of The Nugget and author of “Warriors of the Wildlands: True Tales of the Frontier Partisans.” A history buff, he explores frontier history across three centuries and several continents on his podcast, The Frontier Partisans. For more information visit www.frontierpartisans.com.
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