Three cities look at sharing police patrols

If collaboration is the new municipal catchword, three north metro cities are taking it to the streets.

Ham Lake, Oak Grove and East Bethel city officials, along with Anoka County Sheriff Jim Stuart, are working on a proposal to create a tri-city police district.

Currently, the sheriff's office contracts with the cities individually to provide public safety services and bills them for a set number of dedicated, daily eight-hour officer shifts. The new proposal would let cities buy a share of a district-wide contract for about 20 deputies, allowing an approach that's more tailored to where each city sees its needs -- and its budget.

Ham Lake's City Council has voted to pursue the district approach. Oak Grove's is continuing the discussion, and East Bethel is holding a public informational session during its council meeting tonight.

"We're looking to reduce costs without throwing public safety under the bus," said Ham Lake Mayor Mike Van Kirk, whose city currently has a contract with the sheriff for 36 hours of daily coverage. "I thought it was a win-win-win."

Oak Grove has a contract for 24 hours of daily patrols, and East Bethel for 40. Under the proposal, a set number of deputies would be responsible for patrolling and responding to incidents across the entire district.

The arrangement isn't Stuart's first choice.

"We feel we would be maintaining minimum standards," he said. "I get a little wary if there's going to continually be attempts at cuts, I'm not willing to see public safety take a back seat in these times."

Stuart noted that the goal is to provide a level of staffing that allows deputies to get a minimum of 40 percent "proactive" time, when they are free of paperwork and emergency calls, to patrol and get to know neighborhoods and residents. If 40 percent is the minimum, then 50 percent is the goal to get the best service, he said. It's also a concern, he said, to attach his agency's name to an arrangement that might be perceived as providing substandard service.

Stuart also offered each city a proposal for a slimmed-down contract.

Maintaining service

The big question is whether the proposal would result in reduced service in any or all of the three cities. Ham Lake's Van Kirk says it won't. In East Bethel, officials are mulling over how much of a reduction they can accept in exchange for a reduced price.

"When I see how much the rates have grown and the trends have gone down, that says to me, that money isn't getting maximum values, and putting it in other places would get a better return," she said.

She and others noted that if the district plan is adopted and doesn't work, cities can return to the current arrangement.

There is dissent. East Bethel Council Members Steve Voss and Bill Boyer both were critical of the idea when it first came to the group early last month. Voss said that while he likes the savings, he thinks looking at crime rates and response times is the wrong approach.

"The real issue is what the cities want for the proactive patrolling," he said, adding that he's been amazed by how intimately East Bethel's deputies know the city, from the problem areas to the vacant homes, to the businesses that like to be patrolled.

The issue of losing a force that's dedicated to the city is key, he said; the proposal holds deputies responsible for patrolling all three cities, which total 119 square miles.

Jim Franklin, executive director of the Minnesota Sheriffs Association, said that though there are examples of successful policing districts, crime patterns don't adhere to fiscal-year projections, and that cities will have to do some serious -- and very public -- priority setting.

"There has to be some sort of thought process given to how we respond and what we tell the public we're not going to do when we cut resources back," he said.

Officials in the three cities say that happens now, when deputies respond to incidents outside their assigned areas.

Van Kirk added that the three cities' needs are different from those elsewhere. Among the three, there are no high schools, only one elementary school, no downtowns, no high-density housing. Others noted a rebound from the meth scourge that went through the region in the last decade.

"This literally is rural countryside," he said. "If it weren't for Hwy. 65 going through, we wouldn't even be on the map."

"We're not innovating in this," he said. "This is a trend that is happening."