In a special meeting Friday, the city council put the brakes on helping the Washita County sheriff’s office in police matters not involving emergencies.
The council voted 7-0 with James Newman abstaining to allow the city police department only to respond to emergency situations requested by the county sheriff’s office – and that will happen only if the city had adequate police coverage. The city typically has one officer on duty at all times, Mayor Jerry Beech said.
The council also voted to make sure city police vehicles had proper tracking devices installed and that the county tracking devices would be taken out of city police vehicles.
Currently, the city and the sheriff’s office have an agreement in place where the city pays the county $1,000 for dispatch services.
“We are doing county business with the city of Cordell police officers, which means that we’re taking warrants to Burns Flat, to Dill City, everywhere else. And when you look at this mutual aid, this mutual aid doesn’t talk about us helping them, it talks about them helping us,” Beech said.
There is no agreement or contract for what services, like serving warrants, that the city is doing, Beech said. And, the city is falling behind in its own warrant serving, he added.
A few issues popped out after the mayor started examining the issue, he said.
The city is using city vehicles, paying for the extra fuel the city is using in its police vehicles, and paying extra maintenance costs, among others.
“I would suggest that we stop this until we can negotiate something with the sheriff’s office, since there really isn’t anything in here (the agreement) that says that you’re supposed to be doing that,” Beech said.
Vona Baker (Hicks) said the city shouldn’t stop doing what it’s doing until there is a new agreement in place with the county.
She pointed to an example she knew about.
“In one of the surrounding towns, somebody was trying to get into the house with a little girl there. The little girl called the dad, the dad called the sheriff’s department. They had no one available at that moment. He sent one of our guys, so if it hadn’t been for one of our guys to go out there, I don’t know what would have happened,” she said.
City Attorney Johnny Beech said there could be an issue with insurance.
“I think we’ve got a little bit of risk management problem going on with our people. Maybe not in an emergency deal. We’re sending guys into a potentially hazardous situation. Even FBI agents are killed trying to serve warrants and stuff. And I don’t know that our insurance with OMAG is going to cover that when we’re outside the jurisdictional limits of the city.”
The city attorney told the council the city needs an inner local government agreement with the county to take care of emergency situations like that.
“But you guys are wearing out your new cars,” he said. “You’re wearing out your equipment. You’re sending people off out of the city when you don’t have police coverage during the day on routine type stuff.”
He suggested the city investigate an agreement with the sheriff where the county paid for those services, kind of making police officers reserve deputies when they are called out.
City officials will meet with sheriff Roger Reeve to see if there is interest in hashing out an agreement between the city and sheriff’s office that would qualm the city’s concerns.
In other business during the special meeting, the city also agreed to investigate its options regarding the waste management services provided to the City.
IF YOU GO
The next regularly scheduled city council meeting will be at 6 p.m. Feb. 16 because of the national holiday on Feb. 15. One item to keep an eye on is a proposal by the Cordell Chamber of Commerce to take over the Movie Theater and get opened for regular business soon.