On last day, city police protection ensured for a year

Electric City citizens still have police protection in the wake of a last-minute, inter-city agreement that came together before the year 2014 came to an end.

The Electric City Council voted unanimously last Tuesday night to stay with Grand Coulee for its police protection.

The evening had its moments as the meeting started with Councilmember Aaron Derr proposing that the city accept a proposal for a contract with Coulee Dam for police services.

Derr argued that the Grand Coulee contract was for too much and Electric City couldn’t afford it.

In a recent meeting between council committees when Electric City tried to get Grand Coulee to come down on its $115,000 proposal for 2015, Electric City representatives felt like they were stiff armed.

Coulee Dam had proposed a contract with Electric City for $101,000 for 2015, as part of a five-year plan.

Electric City Councilmember Brad Parrish expressed the mood of the council when he said, “There are no good options.” Fellow Councilmember John Nordine agreed.

However, a spirited crowd of about a dozen people, many of them Grand Coulee police officers, didn’t agree with Parrish and Nordine, and kept chipping away at negative comments that came up from around the council table.

Finally, Mayor Jerry Sands took control of the meeting and painted the council’s way out of the problem. He said if the council went with Grand Coulee then it would have a year to get a long-range agreement with Grand Coulee. He said if the plan was appropriate, the city could seek a levy again to pay for police protection.

An effort to get voters aboard on a police protection levy failed late last summer.

Grand Coulee quickly called a city council meeting for 5:30 Wednesday evening (Dec. 31) to finish up the agreement.

The Grand Coulee council approved the plan and the two cities have time now to work out a long term contract, if they can.

Grand Coulee has been providing police services to Electric City for decades, but the mayor last year said it had been doing so at a loss and proposed raising the price by more than double.