CALEB WARNOCK - Daily Herald | Posted: Saturday, April 21, 2007 11:00 pm
Saratoga Springs's decision to start its own police department could cost Eagle Mountain big.
Eagle Mountain currently contracts with the Utah County Sheriff's Office to provide police services. Deputies recently told the city that for years Saratoga Springs and Eagle Mountain have shared deputies when extra forces were needed in one of the two communities.
But now that Saratoga Springs will open its own police department on July 1, officers will no longer be able to move between the two cities, and Eagle Mountain needs to spend $600,000 to hire more officers to make up the difference. If approved, the city's total police budget would be $1.7 million.
In upcoming weeks, council members will decide whether to accept the increases as they finalize the city's fiscal year 2008 budget. The budget must be completed before July 1.
City administrator John Hendrickson said the council should green light the entire police budget as presented because "safety is so important."
Councilman Vincent Liddiard agreed.
"We feel you folks welcome us in and we have a very cooperative atmosphere," said Lt. Jerry Monson to council members. "Having said that, let me drop a bomb on you. We feel as an organization that the minimum responsible staffing is two deputies at all times."
During some shifts there is only one deputy on duty in Eagle Mountain now, he said.
Even knowing deputies could be shared between cities until now, "we are still woefully understaffed as far as emergency response," he said. "The way to do better is to increase to a minimum of two deputies."
To reach that goal, Eagle Mountain must hire two more deputies, he said. In addition, a full-time school officer is needed.
"This is a vital position," he said. "Their main function is to interact with youth and have a positive influence. We jeopardize some service and safety levels if we pull some officers off the street to teach in school."
Monson also said the city should hire another full-time patrol sergeant to augment the two now on staff.
"We do have nights where there is literally no direct supervision and it makes me nervous," Monson said. "We have men out there going into homes and seizing property and it only take a little judgment error and you've got a problem."
The city also needs to hire a full-time sex crimes detective, he said. Last year the city hired a part-time sex crimes detective.
"He investigated 66 cases in Eagle Mountain and had some good success," Monson said. "Some of those cases were quite significant and some of those were not so significant."
Having a full-time sex crimes detective would allow the city to be proactive, he said.
"Currently there are 10 sex offenders on the registry in Eagle Mountain," he said. "It is nice to be able to monitor them and keep tabs on them."
The Sheriff's Department has also been monitoring sexual predators on the Internet "and there have actually been arrests out of Eagle Mountain because of that," he said.
A full-time secretary is also needed, he said.
"This position would allow us to open up a full-time functioning police station during the day," he said. "A lot of your residents are having to go to Spanish Fork to get police reports and there is no reason why they can't get those here."
The move would also allow deputies to be dispatched from the local office during office hours, he said.
The city also needs to increase the budget to pay for overtime hours, he said.
"We ran out of overtime two months ago and we had to get creative," he said. "If somebody takes a day off I have to put another warm body in a car and that gets expensive. We could use another full-time person just to do that, but I did not ask for that because of the sticker shock. This (proposed budget) already knocked me off my feet."
Caleb Warnock can be reached at 443-3263 or cwarnock@heraldextra.com.
Some of the 2,671 incidents Sheriff's deputies responded to in Eagle Mountain in 2006:
172 alarms
127 ambulance or medical assists
14 animal bites
7 animal cruelty
387 animal noise, stray animals or animal problems
50 alcohol offenses
51 simple assaults
1 assault with a firearm
1 bomb
23 burglaries
29 child abuse or neglect
73 criminal mischief
5 possession meth
19 possession marijuana
38 possession of drug paraphernalia
11 dead bodies
20 driving under the influence
45 fire
18 fireworks
44 domestic violence arrests
8 forgery
2 kidnapping/ unlawful detention
29 missing person
5 attempted suicide
28 sexual abuse of a child
2 sexual abuse forcible
2 rape
17 sodomy
120 traffic offense
49 warrant
This story appeared in The Daily Herald on page B1.