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By JEREMY HAY
THE PRESS DEMOCRAT
Rohnert Park could save more than $2 million a year by contracting police services to the Sonoma County Sheriff’s Office, according to a draft proposal from the sheriff’s office.
The proposal contains three options with different service levels costing $9.2 million a year, $10.3 million and $11.3 million.
Currently, Rohnert Park’s police services cost just under $12 million.
Sheriff Steve Freitas, whose department also provides police services to Windsor and Sonoma, said Tuesday that Rohnert Park would also have access to the much larger department’s greater resources.
“That’s one of the huge advantages,” he said.
But the city’s public safety officers, noting that the Sheriff’s Office only provides law enforcement and some emergency services, say that any of the three options would deliver less service and be less cost-effective overall.
“And at this point, when you combine everything we do — police, fire, animal control and emergency services — I don’t see this proposal saving any money,” said Dave Welch, past president of the Rohnert Park Public Safety Officers Association.
The Sheriff’s Office’s most costly proposal foresees a minimum staffing level of six deputies between 6 p.m. and 2 a.m. Currently, there are eight Rohnert Park officers on patrol from 9 p.m. on, Welch said.
“Based on those numbers, it is definitely a huge cut in services,” Welch said.
The City Council has yet to officially review the proposal. Tuesday, Mayor Gina Belforte said it was premature to comment on it.
“All across the board, I have a lot of questions,” she said.
Rohnert Park City Manager Gabe Gonzalez asked for the proposal as part of an analysis of public safety costs, the first in a series of similar studies of departments that the city, which faces a $1 million deficit, is pursuing.
He has since hired a consultant to assess the city’s Department of Public Safety costs and the Sheriff’s Office proposal.
The proposal does not address fire safety, animal control or emergency services, which in Rohnert Park are combined with law enforcement in the public safety department.
The officers association has begun to openly resist such a move. At its Easter egg hunt event, officers distributed fliers asking for public support against it.
The fliers stated, among other things, that contracting for law enforcement would violate promises city officials made in a successful campaign last year for a 0.5 percent sales tax increase to preserve city services.
“The citizens reaffirmed when they passed Measure E that they wanted to preserve public safety services and they wanted to keep their tax dollars here in Rohnert Park,” Welch said Tuesday.
On Friday, Gonzalez pushed back, sending a letter to community leaders that later will go to all residents, outlining the city’s fiscal challenges.
The letter did not specifically mention public safety, but emphasized a need to examine each department’s costs and whether alternatives exist.
He said on Tuesday that he does not “see it as a battle” with the POA but as him doing his job.
“I am simply looking at the cost. I am not contracting out; that’s not my call to make,” Gonzalez said. “My job is to look at the cost and to inform the City Council and our citizens how and where the money is being spent.”
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I hate to break it to you who believe you “know” what happened when the Sheriff’s Department took over for Sonoma PD. I worked for Sonoma PD. After guaranteeing jobs to all sworn personnel (the Sheriff actually said it would be a “seamless transition”) The Sheriff’s Dept took FIVE officers ~ the 5 least senior officers. The Sheriff’s Dept. declined to offer jobs to three sergeants and five patrol officers. In addition, 3 of 4 Community Service Officers were let go; 2 administrative assistants, the civilian evidence/records supervisor and the civilian youth & family services counselor were also let go. As a result, many excellent officers lost their careers from the change-over. In fact, only two officers are still working in law enforcement for different agencies. If the Sheriff’s Dept takes over for Rohnert Park, none of the sergeants and many excellent officers will not be retained.
Ask yourself this question ~ why would the County of Sonoma take over a law enforcement agency and keep all sworn personnel? The County’s budget is a disaster. The County will take over a jurisdiction and place minimum staffing to cover the area. Taking on the entire police force is not cost effective and will not save the County or Rohnert Park money.
As for the City of Sonoma police services budget…it is a full $1,000,000 higher than any of the other small town police forces in Sonoma County with the same manpower. That fact is easily accessible.
I just finished looking over Windsor’s and Sonoma’s budgets available to anyone online.
From 2007-2011 the cost to Windsor for the Sheriff to provide police services has gone up every year. Almost 10%, $504,228.
In Sonoma from 2005-2011 the price has gone up almost 17%, $577,000.
So they may save in year one, but what about the future. Its a lack of future planning that got them in this mess.
You haven’t been repeatedly proven right about anything. What are you talking about? Your lawsuits were just to selfishly thumb your nose at the city government and just cost taxpayers a lot of money and accomplished nothing. You erected obstacles to overcome on a lark.
It’s pretty narcissistic to think what you and the other gadfly clients you had did was an accomplishment of any sort. So it took three elections to do it “right” because of you. What was the cost to the taxpayers for your “help”? Did it make any difference?
And I’m not posting under a fake name. I think Graeme and Hud are the same and that guy is just screwing with you. And I’m a finish carpenter, not a cop. So you’re wrong repeatedly. The people who hate the government and act spitefully as you have are not helping anyone. You’ve never been right.
You make accusations and you respond to criticism with personal attacks.
As a local gadfly who has repeatedly been proven right by events, in court, and at the polls, I disclaim one word of criticism for how RP fire protection is run. I have never said one word critical of RP fire protection. I think that it is preferable to joining Rancho Adobe. When you take into account how much it would cost to find alternative fire suppression services, the $2 million Gonzales says could be save by farming out the police department disappears.
I will thank-you, Mitch, or Graeme, or Hud or whoever you are, to stop lumping us gadflies into one group that thinks alike as if we were loyal city hall hacks.
Tierra, you’re wrong about Sonoma and Rohnert Park but I wont bother trying to convince you. Facts are facts.
Question, are separate police and fire departments exempt from the same state mandated training somehow? How is it cheaper to have more employees than less? Cheaper to have two big departments rather than one small one?
I don’t expect you to read all the old comments, but when Rohnert Park actually was a Public Safety department rather than just having the label as they do today, it was quite cost effective.
Some years back the local gadflys and the Press Democrat cooked up lots of stories about how bad fire protection was in Rohnert Park. As a result of the criticism, Rohnert Park spent millions to “improve” services. The cost of these improvements are greater than the budget shortfalls they suffer today.
It seems reasonable that if they cut back to the level of service before the manufactured issue arose the budget shortfall could be addressed.
The economic laws I’m referring to concern more costing more and less costing less. You can’t get more for less and you can’t even get the same for less. Getting more service means paying for it. Since the additional services yield no tangible benefit, I say reduce the service to a level you can afford and eliminate the intangible benefits, concentrating on the actual, meaningful benefit you get even at the reduced level.
This was how Rohnert Park was financially flush for most of its existence. It’s hardly controversial to simply return to a formula that worked for most of the city’s history.
Sunnyvale is a very professional organization. Rohnert Park was pretty much a carbon copy. The only difference was that they didn’t have a newspaper printing front page stories for months relentlessly criticizing them and printing the accusations of critics as facts and ignoring reality to sell newspapers and stir controversy.
I think Sunnyvale probably has stronger leadership and a more educated population that was immune to baseless accusations and yellow journalism. Sonoma County is too susceptible to tabloid journalism and conspiracy theories.
Mitch Fowler you don’t know what you are talking about. 4 officers and Gurney went to the S.O. from SPD. Three still work for the SO one of them is still in Sonoma. As for current PD’s converting to Public safety. There is a reason why you don’t see it very often, that because it doesn’t work due to the cost. The state mandates a certain amount of inservice training for fire and cops and that cost a lot of money. The only place where this model is successful is in Sunnyvale. Thats because the force them to rotate back and forth and the city has significant funds to keep up with training. Think about it. If the public safety model truly worked why aren’t there more public safety departments? Is it because RP is the only smart municipality?
There sure are a lot of RP cops here. You guys sure are well organized. Of course, that’s why you get the compensation (in all forms) that you get. It’s not because of danger. RP is not Oakland or Richmond. In the 25 years I have lived here I can think of only one peace officer who has been killed in Sonoma County while on duty. (Sheriff Deputy Trejo) The most dangerous job in Sonoma County that I am aware of is commercial fisherman.
@ John Hudson, then I’ll stand corrected. Leaving the car running, but locked, is largely SOP anymore given all the electronics on board as noted by another poster. If the officer secured the vehicle and had the extra key, then that’s that.
As for leaving the car running, quite often you have to leave the engine running due to the MDC (mobile dispatch computer), if you let the car sit to long the battery will die.
I didn’t count Gurney, but it was just one actual street officer that made it all the way through the process. Is that considered 30-40% of the force?
Every department everywhere in the entire nation is having a lot of difficulty finding even basic qualified officers that can actually meet integrity standards. As a result, the standards have been lowered SIGNIFICANTLY and this is a reflection of the young men and women in society.
I think it’s very likely that literally all of Rohnert Park and Santa Rosa’s officers would wash out of the Sheriff’s Office screening. To be fair, most all of their own deputies would also fail this process if they had to start over too.
I wish we could populate all the local departments with real-life versions of Pete Malloy and Jim Reed. Today, we’re stuck with John Cooper and Ben Sherman.
The threat of contracting with the Sheriff’s Department is insincere. I think practically it could not happen because you could not find that many officers that could qualify that quickly and there would be a lot of poison pills Rohnert Park and Santa Rosa would have to swallow which they can’t and won’t.
So, as with everything, it’s political. The threat to contract with the Sheriff and the “savings” is an illusion to gain leverage in contract negotiations. I think if a city government actually set out to make it happen or even planned to, the cost and the problems would be impossible to overcome. Windsor is a special situation because it was part of the County already when they incorporated and the transition was so straightforward – just changing uniforms literally.
I think a more possible outcome is Santa Rosa converting into a Public Safety department in the manner Rohnert Park started out with. It would save the city from their crisis and could be practically implemented in a reasonable time. Rohnert Park’s super high level of service (in spite of the inevitable complaints aired here) is very, very costly and they’ll have to just reduce this level to something that costs what they can afford.
Economic laws can’t be broken even if city governments wanted to. This will become apparent if and when any of these cities actually tried to carry out these kinds of big changes.
I said that the engine was running. I did not say that the car was unlocked. The only way that I would know that would be to try to open the door.
@ Mitch Fowler…
The Sonoma PD chief, John Gurney, and two officers were hired into the sheriff’s office according to information I got from former SPD employees.
You have differently sourced information?
@ John Hudson… the PSO leaving his car unlocked and running while loafing away from the car and watching a softball game is indicative of a large (and dangerous) abundance of trust and a huge officer safety problem.
Really Officer “Fowler”? Do I tell tall tales? If you click on Documents number three http://www.rpucc.com you will see a finacial statement showing what a tall tale the City of RP is telling when it says that Measure L is driving the city toward bankruptcy. (Hint: Check out the $2 million profit the city made on public utilities last year.)
If you look at the thumbs up/thumbs down ratios, I clearly have better credibility than you (in all your incarnations). That’s only natural because I post under my real name whereas you post under several fictitious names. If a man lies about his own name he will lie about anything, won’t he, officer? (Hell, maybe that cop with the motor running was you.)
I would also point out that my remarks in this thread can hardly be deemed “anti-RPPSOA”. I generally supported the present fire suppression system as being adequate. (A point on which I disagreed with the late Paul Stutrud.) Joining Rancho Adobe would probably cost far more. I also posted in support of the police regarding the Kao shooting. I generally like having the police live in the neighborhoods they police as is usually the case in RP. However, I didn’t like the attitude demonstrated by leaving the engine running.
Only one Sonoma PD officer was hired by the Sheriff’s Office when they took over. Where did the 30% to 40% figure come from Big Dog? And Hudson, you should write down the license plate of the cop car and call the main station to complain rather than posting your usual disparaging remarks here. For all we know this tale is as made up as the many other tall tales you’ve told.
Negotiations are about showing the other side what they can lose before chips can be shoved across the table. Good job Mayor Belforte and City Manager Gonzales.
The canard from the RPPSOA about “law enforcement and some emergency services” is exactly that, a canard. The sheriff staffs SWAT, EOD, traffic enforcement, coroner, investigations both general and specialized… in short better and deeper emergency services than the city could ever hope to perform on it’s own.
Sonoma County Animal Reg, or the Humane Society for that matter, could do the animal services piece for far less than RPDPS is doing it now. The city run animal shelter is yet again another expensive duplication of services that are being done many fold over across the county. Look at Marin County where the Humane Society has been successfully handling all animal regulation and the shelter for generations across the entire county. One stop, county wide, shopping for animal control and shelter services should be what all the cities should be looking toward in these lean times. Petaluma, Rohnert Park and many of the small cities all run their own animal control operations. Isn’t it time that we take a look at those duplicated services and expenses?
As to the fire piece, merge into the Rancho Adobe district, or into Rincon Valley Fire. The city has already got the equipment and the fire houses in place. All that is needed is staff and the sign off of the voters. Both of those districts are well established and could offer dedicated, professional fire services at less cost than exceptionally highly paid public safety officers… aka firefighters with guns.
And in so far as all the Rohnert Park officers going to the sheriff’s department… the hire over rate for Sonoma PD was between 30 and 40%. That is three or four out of ten actually met standards for the sheriff’s office and made the move. And that formula is pretty good math when one wants to clean out the swamp that largely is RPDPS.
This afternoon, while my son was involved in spring football at M park, I walked to the baseball diamonds. I walked by an RP cop car parked, unoccupied, with its engine running. Watching one of the softball games was a large RP cop. I walked back past the car with the engine running, still unoccupied. This attitude needs adjusting. The cops are on a different planer if they leave their cars unoccupied with the engine running to watch a softball game. It demonstrates arrogance and disrespect for the taxpayers.
This isn’t about services anymore. This is about money. Will it save? Then do it. Nothing personal, just balance the budget. Cutting deep is painful, but neccessary.
So they cut the RP Police out and bring in the Sheriffs, so what does this mean for us? Are they going to turn the police station into a Sheriffs sub station? Coming from a city that had Sheriffs patrol the town and not have a substation, our crime was high because it would take them longer to get there from the city next to us. Once we got the substation, then it seemed that the response time was quicker. I honestly think that the RP police are doing a good job. The times I’ve needed assistance, they were there quickly. I’m more concerned about what the city council will do with the extra 2 million.
Spoken like a true lawyer. You didn’t say we’d get a break, but you did say we were paying a premium for sub-standard fire protection. Did you rates go up or down after the big push for better fire protection?
Why does Rohnert Park have so much wildland fire fighting apparatus today? Because you and the rest of the gadflys demanded it. How much did it cost? More than the cost of the city hall boondoggle. Why don’t you criticize that expense? Because YOU asked for it!
This gadfly never got a break on his fire insurance and never said that there would be one. However, when the monthly premium is less than $50 (as is mine) it says several things: 1) that fire protection is adequate, 2) that this is a firesafe area away from the urban-wildland interface, and 3)that safe and safe fireworks are not a fire hazard.
How much is to contract for someone to take over the fire services since the Sheriff’s Department doesn’t do that? Don’t you have to factor that in to determine if there will be cost savings?
Obviously a lot of people hate the police in Rohnert Park and resent that they get paid and have benefits. The pay and benefits of the Sheriff’s Deputies is going to be about the same and I doubt that figure is being considered.
All you radical liberal who hate police are not going to be satisfied with the Sheriff’s Department either.
Rohnert Park needs to cut back on lots of services and they need to cut back on public safety services too. Much more savings could be had if they returned to the old public safety model they had in place before the gadflys and the Press Democrat decided there was no “real” fire department in Rohnert Park and the city tried to spend their way into silencing the critics.
Did anyone get that break on their fire insurance the way all the gadflys said it would happen?
Hey Dave Welch, did you forget you are NOT the POA Predident anymore? Pipe down. Where is the POA President and the rest of the officers? Probably filling out background packet and getting ready for a better career the SO has to offer.
Folks, Sonoma PD had the same growing pains. Look at the officers now… enjoying a better life, better working conditions, less turmoil, more advancement and opportunities, and better trained.
Citizens, it makes no sense to train every single officer to be a firefighter. This would be like training every flight attendant to be a pilot, and every pilot to be a airplane mechanic. What’s the point? It is very expensive to run an agency this way – and there is a reason why Rohnert Park is among the few if not ONLY agency in California still doing this. IT MAKES NO SENSE!!!
CITY MANAGER: Go with the Sheriff’s Department… save costs and run our city efficiently. Hopefully the background process will weed out some of the officers who are no longer qualified!
What a blessing this will be!
While $2 million is nothing to sneeze at, it pales in comparison to the $8.5 million that the city council squandered on a new city hall that nobody outside city government wanted or the $14 million the city borrowed in 2005 to trunk sewer pipe to build a new sewer pipe that is expanded and pressurized to accommodate the 4,500 new housing units developers want to build on the east side of RP. Then there is the $1 million or so in redevelopment money the city council voted to give to Codding. $2 million is nothing to sneeze at, but let’s keep it in perspective with the other actions of the MacKenzie, Belforte, Stafford & Ahanotu regime in city hall.
No, what will happen is that the City Council will do something stupid with that money, like build a bigger sign then the one that’s going to be built, use that 2 million to have the SMART station behind the leaving State Farm. And they will tell you “WHAT POT HOLES?” Maybe they can build another city hall on the other side of Rohnert Park…
Take a pay cut. The ball is in your court. Do the right thing and save us from the crime spree you say will come if the S.O. takes over. The city you serve awaits your reply.
Let the voters (taxpayers) decide. And every time the Rohnert Park Police Officers Association publishes a hit-piece on how bad things will get if the sheriff’s department take over, then I guess that would tell the County not to hire any existing RP officers if the County gets the contract.
After all, there they are, telling us taxpayers just how bad things will be if they get hired in the future by the very agency they are against today.
9.2 million for the lowest level of Sheriff’s patrol services. Rohnert Park currently pays under 12 million for Police and Fire. It sounds to me that 12 million is not bad for the Police and Fire protection. What did we raise the sales tax for? Let’s keep RP Public Safety. I am willing to pay for a local PD.
Save 2 million dollars? Could they fix the potholes all over the Rohnert Park? Could they open some closed pools? Could they spend some money on the community and it’s citizens instead of paying public safety officers 6 figure incomes with full retirement benefits at the age of 52? If so it makes the most fiscal sense. Sounds good to me. Will it happen? Doubt it. My sense is that it’s a negotiation tool. Good for Gabe Gonzalez for thinking about what’s fair, ethical and right to the community and it’s tax payers. I know someone is bound to bring up the recent murder of the 20 year old in this thread of reply’s. That hotel has been seedy and a place prostitutes and drug users hang for years and Public Safety has done nothing to get rid of them! Time to look at alternatives. The Sheriff’s department are not the bad guys! Rohnert Park will be okay.
No brainer, save the money.