Special meeting set to decide on police coverage

Electric City was set to make a decision late Tuesday on providing police protection for the city after its current contract with Grand Coulee expires at the end of the year.

The Star, which had an early deadline due to the New Year’s holiday, will file an online update at grandcoulee.com with the results of the 8 p.m. special council meeting.

Council committees from both Electric City and Grand Coulee met Dec. 23, in an effort to see if they could come to an agreement differing from one they had reached earlier.

The two council committees — John Nordine and Brad Parrish from Electric City and Erin Nielsen and Tom Poplawski of Grand Coulee — met to see if there was any wiggle room from the $115,000 agreed upon after an earlier fall meeting.

There wasn’t.

It was up to Electric City Tuesday night to decide between contracting with Grand Coulee for police protection or going with an offer of about $101,000 from Coulee Dam.

Electric City Clerk Jackie Perman said she had been instructed to prepare two memorandums of understanding, one for an agreement with Grand Coulee, the other with Coulee Dam.

“It will be up to the council to decide which one they agree to,” Perman said. Details of any contract would be worked out later, Perman stated.

Electric City Mayor Jerry Sands said that it’s a council decision, and he had no idea how the council would decide.

Nordine, who spoke about the Dec. 23 meeting, said it was “up in the air.” He stated that there was no movement on Grand Coulee’s part to come down on its offer of $115,000.

On Grand Coulee’s part, neither Nielsen or Poplawski could be reached for comment, but during recent council discussions it was pointed out that providing police service to Electric City cost more than the city was getting for it.

This year marks the end of a 5-year contract between the two cities. The final year (2014) cost Electric City about $80,000.

During discussions at a recent Electric City council meeting, Mayor Sands was instructed to meet with Coulee Dam to see if officials there would be interest in providing services. They were.

Any agreement with Grand Coulee would be for 2015 only, giving the two cities time to take a longer view of police services with even the possibility of a joint police operation.

Coulee Dam’s offer was for a 5-year contract.

Full details of Tuesday night’s meeting will be included in next week’s Star. Tuesday night’s meeting occurred after The Star’s holiday deadline.