Imperial Beach Thinks About Calling in the Police : County Move to Raise Cost of Sheriff’s Services Forces City to Look at Its Options

There was bitterness the day the sheriff came to town in 1983, but most Imperial Beach residents now say it was a positive move for their community.

“There have been very few complaints in the last five years,” said Imperial Beach City Manager Sherman T. Stenberg. “The general consensus is that Sheriff (John) Duffy and his people have done an excellent job.”

“The sheriff’s officers are far superior to what we had here before,” agreed Imperial Beach Mayor Henry Smith.

According to sheriff’s spokesman Sgt. Frank Nunez: “Our deputies are happy to work down there. They feel like they work for that city. They have formed an attachment to that community.”

Why, then, with such mutual admiration between Imperial Beach and the San Diego County Sheriff’s Department, did the City Council vote 3-2 on March 1 to cancel its contract with the law enforcement agency next year?

The answer lies in the “full-cost recovery program” being considered by the county Board of Supervisors. The plan would require the nine cities that contract with the Sheriff’s Department for their law enforcement needs to pay for the “extra” services they use.

Imperial Beach now pays the county $1.5 million for 24 uniformed sheriff’s deputies to patrol its streets and control traffic, said City Manager Stenberg.

In addition, other Sheriff’s Department services--such as vice, narcotics and gang units, Astrea helicopters, the crime lab and the Special Weapons and Tactics Team--are at the city’s disposal, said Nunez.

The cost of providing these “extra” services to the nine cities is about $9.6 million annually, according to a spokesman for Norman Hickey, the county’s chief administrative officer.

Some Are Up in Arms

If the county approves the full-cost recovery plan, Imperial Beach and other the other contract cities--Del Mar, Encinitas, Lemon Grove, Poway, San Marcos, Santee, Solana Beach and Vista--might see their annual law enforcement budgets as much as double.

Such a plan has forced Imperial Beach to consider its alternative: re-establishing its own Police Department. It is a plan that has many city officials and residents up in arms.

Even those council members who voted to cancel the sheriff’s contract, effective Feb. 28, 1989, admit they are not sure bringing back the Imperial Beach Police Department is the right route to take.

“This vote simply forced the situation into the public light, and now we have to do something,” said City Councilman John Clingan, who voted to cancel the contract. “I don’t want to be in a situation where our backs are against the wall and we have no choice to make.”

Clingas said his “beef is not with the Sheriff’s Department, it’s with the county. We just want to find out what the county plans to do. We are sick of being put down at the bottom of their list.”

At its meeting last Tuesday, the Council appointed a seven-member committee to compare the anticipated costs and services of the Sheriff’s Department with a revived city Police Department. The committee will report to the council within 60 days. The decision to cancel the contract can be rescinded by the council any time before Feb. 28.

Stenberg said the “very preliminary” estimated cost to re-establish the Police Department is $2.1 million.

“My instinct tells me that’s probably a conservative figure,” he said. “It includes hiring a staff of 23 officers, buying all the equipment, and attendant costs such as police car service.”

It would cost another “$2 million-plus” annually to run the department, Stenberg said.

‘A Lot of Calls’

“I’ve gotten a lot of calls on this (from residents),” said Councilwoman Tommie Schuette, “and the majority don’t want to go back to the Police Department.”

“This goes back a long way. There were a lot of hard feelings when we had the police; there were a lot of problems. We didn’t get the service we wanted from them, and now we can’t afford the service.”

Stenberg said such complaints were not unfounded. Because of major fiscal problems, the department had dwindled to 14 officers by the time it closed in February, 1983.

“I think I had a fairly good police department, but the perception of some of the elements in the community was that I did not have a professional police department,” the city manager said. “Many thought the recruitment, experience and training procedures were not what a modern police department would have.”

‘Did the Best We Could’

“I won’t dispute that, but we did the best we could with limited funds,” he said. “We were very close to municipal bankruptcy; the city was in a very precarious financial position at the time.”

While Imperial Beach debates the pros and cons of re-establishing its police force, other contract cities have adopted a “wait-and-see” attitude. The Board of Supervisors is not expected to consider the full-cost recovery plan until midsummer.

“We are pretty happy with the Sheriff’s Department and the service it has provided for us,” said Lemon Grove City Manager Jack Shelver. “We have access to a huge variety of programs, which is a nice thing for a small city.”

“There is something to be said for the pride of ownership of having your own department, but whether that outweighs flexibility . . . I don’t know,” he said.

Encinitas City Manager Warren Shafer said that while the Sheriff’s Department provides a reasonable amount of service to that city, if service costs are increased “substantially,” an Encinitas Police Department would be a strong possibility.

“If the departments would cost roughly the same amount, I would think we would establish an independent department,” Shafer said. “It’s an issue of setting our own priorities. For things that are locally important, we can address it ourselves.”

However, there are many in Imperial Beach, including the mayor, who would favor the sheriff’s services over its own police even if the costs were equivalent.

“If I were to have my choice, and the sheriff’s services and our own department were available at a comparable figure, I would still take the sheriff,” said Mayor Smith.

“A small department can’t furnish the services the Sheriff’s Department can,” he said. “We get air support, the bomb squad, dog sniffers--anything we might need quickly at any time.”