Waldport and Yachats city councils considering sharing costs of expanded Lincoln County sheriff’s patrols

 

By GARRET JAROS/YachatsNews

Waldport and Yachats are considering a proposal to expand Lincoln County Sheriff’s coverage in the two cities by sharing costs and adding a third deputy to patrols.

The idea comes as Waldport faces a 9 percent increase in its contract with the sheriff’s office and Yachats looks for ways to increase the presence of deputies in the community.

The Waldport city council listened to a presentation about the proposal last week by Sheriff Curtis Landers, who then appeared before the Yachats council Wednesday to talk about the idea.

The Waldport council said it would like to proceed with the proposal, which has been under discussion between Waldport city manager Dann Cutter and Yachats city manager Bobbi Price. Both councils would have to formally approve any contract, as would the Lincoln County budget committee and commissioners.

On Wednesday, Landers told the Yachats council he’d like to know a direction sometime in May, so he and the county’s budget committee can consider it. The Yachats council agreed to look into the financial feasibility of adding the service but wants to run the idea through its finance and budget committees.

Landers, Cutter and Price estimate a two-city contract with a third deputy would cost approximately $450,000 – with Waldport paying $300,000 and Yachats $150,000.

 

Landers told the Waldport council Thursday he was “very intrigued” by a shared contract.

“I see significant advantages to having that,” Landers said. “Number one it adds a person. Number two (when a deputy has to respond to a call out of town) I wouldn’t feel as bad they are not in the city at that time … and there would be a little bit more cost sharing, which is really where I’m trying to go with it.”

Waldport has been contracting with the sheriff’s office to provide deputies since it dissolved its police department in 1998. The city currently pays $366,831 a year for deputies Doug Honse on days and Abby Dorsey on nights for a combined 80 hours a week.

That contract expires June 30 and if Waldport wants to continue with two deputies the new contract would increase to $400,000 on July 1.

The increase reflects the price of everything going up over time including the overhead the sheriff’s office pays to Lincoln County which will increase from 13 percent to 17.5 percent in July.

“I’ve been working with our county administrator to address the current 17.5 percent of indirect cost that I’ve been required to put onto the city for our personnel cost,” Landers said. “And that’s been a cost that’s been there since we’ve had the contract, an indirect cost. That number’s also gone up. To be frank, we can’t figure out how that number is even calculated.”

Landers said county administrator Tim Johnson wants to work with bringing that cost down and hopes to reduce it to 10 percent or less. If that happened, and Waldport chose to continue its current contract, the price would drop to $377,642.

Landers gave the Waldport council four options to consider:

• Terminate the contract altogether;
• Reduce the contract to one deputy working either the day or night shift scheduled 40 hours per week at a cost of $199,763 – or $188,821 if county overhead drops to 10 percent;
• Retain the current contract; or
• Partner with Yachats.

Under a combined Waldport/Yachats contract, if the indirect cost is reduced, it would increase the county’s cost by $72,000 a year.

“I don’t know where the commissioners would sit with that option,” Landers said. “I would definitely go to bat to try to get that, but again, that would be a budget committee decision to determine if that’s something they want to do.”

While residents of both cities already pay about $50,000 each toward law enforcement as part of their overall property tax payments to the county, having contracted deputies adds coverage.

Landers outlined services that would go away if Waldport chose to terminate the contract. Deputies would no longer respond to camping and ordinance enforcement, non-criminal traffic accidents, civil disputes, alarms, welfare checks or drug complaints, he said.

Some of those issues could be addressed through increased code enforcement, but they would only be reported and not responded to. Minor property crime would also be noted but unless a suspect was identified, would also not receive a response.

“And again, without that, you’re going to be stretched very thin and while we are still mandated to respond to calls here, those response times … will significantly go up,” Landers said. “And we’re talking about we’re under 10 minutes in Waldport, (while) just down the street in Yachats, we are over 15 minutes to those in progress calls that we have to respond to.”

Current personnel shortages also means that without contract deputies in Waldport and others in Siletz and Depoe Bay, there are nights that only two deputies are tasked with covering the entire county – which could mean an incident in south county awaiting a response by a deputy who might be miles away in Otis.

“We try to schedule somebody at least in south county, east county and north county every night with a supervisor, that’s our ultimate coverage, but lately that hasn’t always been the case,” Landers said.

Waldport councilor Jayme Morris asked Price, who attended the meeting, how the Yachats’ council felt about sharing costs with Waldport and adding a deputy.

“I know they are very open to the conversation … open to exploring this option with Waldport,” Price said. “And we are interested to hear if you were also interested in sharing services and supporting south county as a whole.”

County commissioners would also be a big part in that decision, to make it affordable for everyone, Price added.

Hats in hand

Also giving a presentation to the council were Lincoln County Health and Human Services director Jayne Romero and winter shelter manager Chantelle Estess. The pair are making the rounds in hopes of persuading seven cities in the county to contribute money to help pay for 2024-25 shelter operations – and make a long-term funding commitment.

The county expects 2024-25 shelter operating costs to be $820,000 and is prepared to contribute $447,000 toward that. That leaves a balance of $373,000. The county will ask Newport and Lincoln City to contribute $100,000 each, which leaves a balance of $173,000.

“Any contributions that you could possibly make would be welcome regardless of the amount,” Romero said. “All contributions are welcome.”

Between October and March there were 5,333 total nights stayed at the shelter (with repeat guests) and 230 individuals who used the shelter, Estess said. Eighteen of those who stayed identified as being from Waldport and they accounted for 12.5 percent of the overall stays or about 8 percent of the people who used the shelter.

“We noticed a big need,” Estess said. “And the need is that a lot of our guests, 43 percent is over the age of 50.”

More than 66 percent of homeless came from Lincoln County.

Forty-four organizations donated goods and services, including Angell Job Corps and nine county departments helped. Thirty-three people were helped into transitional or permanent housing.

Romero has previously said the county has not determined how much to ask the cities of Waldport, Depoe Bay, Toledo, Siletz and Yachats to contribute. Yachats donated $5,000 toward costs this winter, Siletz $500, and Waldport and Toledo nothing.

The problem, councilor Susan Woodruff said after the presentation, is that while it sounds very nice that people are being helped, it does not seem sustainable for the city or the county.

“I just don’t know where we go from here and I don’t see how our city can contemplate the costs involved in getting homeless people to buying houses of their own,” Woodruff said. “I mean that is a tremendous thing and something’s got to change drastically for that to actually be realized. And all of our tax rates are frozen … so that is my struggle.”

Councilors Morris and Rick Booth did some impromptu math and calculated that if Waldport were to pay the 8 percent (estimated users of the shelter from Waldport) it would cost the city about $70,000.

“That’s asking our citizens to pay $70,000 for 16 citizens,” Booth said. “That’s a hard pill to swallow. I know that they need help but …”

“Please know we are not asking for that,” Romero responded.

“Those 16 people are important,” Booth said. “And Yachats has six or eight people there. It’s just how do we pull it out of the pocket of the people and justify it.”

“Again, we are just putting it out there for your consideration,” Romero said. “I’m looking for funding everywhere I can. And by the way the balance is just ($300,000) and something, not that that’s small change. But I’ve accounted for over half of it at this point.”

In the end the council decided to earmark $5,000 from its contingency fund – roughly $2 per citizen – for the warming center.

Price added that Yachats will likely pony up the same amount again this year.

In other business

• Jay Morris was appointed to the city’s planning commission.
• FD Thomas Inc. was awarded a $789,543 contract to recoat the city’s 2 million gallon bolted-steel water tank on Nelson Wayside Drive. The recoating should extend the life of the tank another 20 to 30 years. Funds to pay for the re-coating are coming from the state through efforts by Rep. David Gomberg, D-Otis.

 

• Garret Jaros is YachatsNews’ full-time reporter and can be reached at GJaros@YachatsNews.com