Two cities to finalize police contract

After more than a year of on-and-off negotiations, and an interlude with a third town, Grand Coulee and Electric City are set to wrap up an extension of their current police contract in December, ensuring police protection for Electric City in 2016.

The new agreement proposed by Grand Coulee is for a two-year period at a basic annual cost of $125,000.

The agreement calls for Grand Coulee police to answer all police calls, provide traffic control (including radar), check on business buildings during the night, do regular car patrols, do criminal investigations, and provide police services for civic functions.

Grand Coulee would provide all equipment, including vehicles, all salaries and benefits of its officers, supervise all officers, and provide public liability insurance.

Electric City would pay 28 percent of the dispatching fees from the Multi-Agency Communications Center and pay its own jail services expenses at Grant County Jail.

The cities are in the last year of their current five-year contract, with a cost in 2015 of $115,000.

The two city council law enforcement committees hammered out the proposal a few weeks ago, and Electric City accepted it at its meeting earlier this month.

Both cities are expected to sign the agreement at meetings in December.

The new agreement, for 2016 and 2017, is a turnaround for the pair. Negotiations in the spring broke down, causing Electric City to negotiate a deal with Coulee Dam. However, that deal was on the rocks because Coulee Dam didn’t sign the agreement.

That encouraged Electric City and Grand Coulee to meet again, and an agreement was quickly hammered out.

In the second year, 2017, it calls for a cost-of-living increase of no less than 2 percent and no more than 5 percent. That starts another round of negotiations for continued police services.