Electric City to keep Grand Coulee police services

The Electric City Council has agreed in principle to a proposal by Grand Coulee to provide police services to the city.

The particulars were scratched out over an earlier agreement between the two parties and the council asked that it be finished up and prepared for adoption at its Dec. 8 meeting.

The agreement for 2016 and 2017 would have Electric City pay $125,000 for Grand Coulee’s police services the first year. For 2017, the amount would increase according to the Consumer Price Index, not to be less than 2 percent or more than 5 percent.

The current contract is for $115,000.

The cities also agreed to begin negotiations for future years at the start of 2017.

The two city councils’ law enforcement committees got together recently and put together the new agreement only weeks before the current contract runs out Dec. 31.

The 11th-hour agreement was a turnaround for Electric City, which had negotiated a contract for police services with Coulee Dam after negotiations with Grand Coulee turned sour last spring.

That contract had been agreed upon, but never signed by either city.

It was apparent that Electric City was nervous about the fact that Coulee Dam had lost its police chief and was having trouble keeping enough officers on board to service the city.

In other parts of the tentative agreement, Electric City agreed to pay its own jail service expenses at the Grant County Jail. Electric City will also pay to Cities Insurance Association of Washington, Grand Coulee’s false arrest insurance pertaining to activity operating on behalf of the Electric City, while performing law enforcement protection.

Electric City also agrees to reimburse Grand Coulee 28 percent of the fees invoiced to Grand Coulee by the Multi-Agency Communications Center (MACC) for law enforcement dispatch services.