The potential for Ridgefield to cover La Center’s police duties has the latter city’s elected officials with only a few questions on minor aspects of a contract.
During a workshop ahead of their regular meeting June 15, the La Center City Council heard from consultants about what a contract with Ridgefield would look like.
Berk Consulting, the firm responsible for the study, spoke with La Center Interim Police Chief Bob Richardson and former mayor Greg Thornton, half a dozen members of the Ridgefield Police Department as well as partner agencies such as the Clark County Sheriff’s Office and Battle Ground Municipal Court, Berk Associate Katherine Goetz said.
Berk determined a La Center contract would require six additional patrol officers for Ridgefield so they could provide around-the-clock service at the same level as the department currently provides in its jurisdiction, Goetz said. Other additions included two records and administrative support positions and an additional detective position.
Ridgefield would handle public information and creation of police reports, based on Berk’s study. One of the issues for covering two jurisdictions is the current limitation in data systems, Virginia Gleason, a consultant with extensive experience in police contracting who was present for the study session, said.
At issue was Clark Regional Emergency Services Agency’s ability to parse calls between Ridgefield and La Center, she said. Currently, officers would have to maintain separate credentials for La Center and Ridgefield for the cities’ separate data systems.
“The system itself doesn’t lend to easily be able to track things with two different cities,” Gleason said.
Gleason noted the consultants had conversations with Richardson on possible solutions, be it a way of flagging which jurisdiction a call came in from or some other means.
As to how La Center could bring up changes to policing, the contract would have La Center city council going through the mayor, who would be in contact with Ridgefield’s city manager and police chief. Goetz said the intent for that chain of communication is to have a single point of contact for police issues.
“If it’s something more complicated like a change in service level or a concern … I think the idea is those would go to the city manager and the chief,” Goetz said.
She added La Center’s mayor would meet with the police chief and Ridgefield city manager regularly.
Over time, contracting with Ridgefield would save La Center money, Goetz said. Having shared administration, support staff, facilities and contractual services would lead to cost savings overall.
Gleason said an expanded department could prove more attractive to recruitment efforts. With the growth happening in especially Ridgefield, a position with a department overseeing both cities would offer greater variety in calls while still having the aspects that draw residents to move into the area in the first place.
“There’s officers looking at this area (who) say, ‘I want to work in that community, but I don’t want to just be doing house checks,’” Gleason said.
Councilor Elizabeth Cerveny agreed that oftentimes brand-new officers don’t have the variety of tasks and assignments that they need to keep them excited about being on the force.
“That’s what led to many of the departures that we’ve had in the past,” Cerveny said.
Signing a contract with Ridgefield made sense in numerous ways, Gleason said.
“There’s a certain quality of life in those two cities that you don’t see very many places, and I think combining these departments helps keep that quality of life,” Gleason said.
In talking with Ridgefield officers, she said their dedication to the work stood out. She added those officers were aware of the growing pains the department would experience should it take on policing in La Center.
“The officers also said, ‘We’re willing to suffer a little bit for this greater good for these two cities,’” Gleason said.
Berk set up their modeling in terms of a five-year contract. Councilor Melissa Fox posed the situation where after adding the officers to cover La Center, the contract terminates, asking where would the officers go.
“To my knowledge, the cost of this … it’s going to cost us the majority of our police budget. It’s not like we have all this extra we’re just sitting over here saving for that rainy day when we have to maybe pull up our own officers out of a hat,” Fox said.
Gleason said in past contract terminations she’s seen there was enough lead time for both parties to determine their police futures. She said there were a few ways in which laid off officers could be picked up by La Center if those happened.
The consultants gave the presentation to Ridgefield City Council the month prior. There, councilors raised concerns about staffing, and wanted to hear more feedback from the Ridgefield community before approving any agreement covering La Center’s policing.
At the end of the work session, councilor KC Kasberg, himself a commander with the Clark County Sheriff’s Office, said the council’s concerns over a potential contract were not major issues.
“The questions that we had regarding this are over really fairly minor things,” Kasberg said.
