City will shop for police protection

Electric City is looking for law enforcment support other than from Grand Coulee, the city with which it has contracted for decades to police its streets.

The city council committee on law enforcement was instructed by council last Tuesday night to go shopping.

Councilmembers Brad Parrish and Aaron Derr will approach Coulee Dam to see if that town is interested in providing police services to Electric City.

It appeared for a while that the question had been solved for at least 2015, when the law enforcement committees from both Electric City and Grand Coulee had negotiated a $115,000 fee. But that was never finalized, and efforts to contact Grand Coulee officials by phone have failed, according to Derr.

“Let them pack sand,” Parrish said as he quickly supported the idea of going elsewhere.

A private citizen at the council meeting, Steve Salstrom, suggested to council that it go to Coulee Dam. He stated that he had a conversation with Coulee Dam Police Chief Pat Collins, and there might be interest there.

Later, Mayor Jerry Sands reminded Salstrom, who kept making comments, that this was a council matter.

There was a flare up between the two cities a few months ago when Grand Coulee Mayor Chris Christopherson floated a new five-year proposal to Electric City showing a 279-percent increase in what his city would charge for police services. The proposal showed that it would go up each year until it reached about $250,000 a year. The proposal had been made without input from police chief Mel Hunt. This current year Electric City is paying $80,000.

That’s when the two council committees got together to come up with the $115,000 fee for 2015, giving the cities breathing room and time to negotiate a longer contract.

It prompted Electric City to go to the voters early this month trying to raise some $60,000 through increased real estate taxes that would have gone to police protection.

That effort failed miserably, with voters rejecting the idea by 170 to 90.

The discussion Tuesday night ranged from not having any police protection to having its own police department.

That’s when it was decided that it was time to go shopping.