Patrol gap aleviated
It was overcast but dry on Saturday, May 26, as spectators crowded the sidewalks along Hwy. 101 for the annual Azalea Festival Parade in Downtown Brookings.
And the overall mood was good. But beneath it all was the real fear stemming from Curry County’s pending fiscal crisis.
A series of sirens wailed amid enthusiastic applause, as the procession was led by a Brookings Police Dept. (BPD) vehicle. Right behind it was a Curry County Sheriff’s Dept. patrol car -- and the latter may be a rare sight in a matter of weeks, as 16 deputies already have been laid off.
On Friday, May 25, President Bush signed a one-year extension of the county payments program, which has long funded Curry, Josephine and other timber-dependent areas. The $425 million plan was part of $8 billion in domestic spending offered as a compromise between the president and congressional Democrats.
Bush agreed to include the spending if Democrats excluded a timetable for withdrawal of U.S. troops from Iraq in the emergency appropriation It includes approximately $95 billion for that war and the conflict in Afghanistan.
However, those federal dollars won’t arrive until November, leaving officials in rural counties with a funding gap between July 1 and then.
How Josephine County commissioners will handle the coming monies has yet to be determined. (See page 9 for early county comment).
While maintaining security at the parade, BPD Officer Kelby McCrae said that, for now, things remain calm.
“Really, no effects have taken place yet,” McCrae said. “It’s business as normal.”
He said that the Curry County Sheriff’s Dept. and BPD continue to work well together, but that he expects itt to change soon.
“The effect is that we won’t have deputies to back us up on calls, like they normally would,” McCrae said.
Brookings city residents will will have police patrols, but unincorporated areas such as Harbor, located just south of the city across the Chetco River across the B.A. “Dot” Martin Bridge, will not.
“It’s a big county to be able to handle with few road deputies,” McCrae said. “It will be very limited coverage.”
Across the street from McCrae, Curry County Republican Central Committee Chairman Bill Waddle sat at a booth pondering his county’s future. Waddle, a reserve sheriff’s deputy who lives outside city limits, is aware of what the law enforcement cuts will mean for him.
“I’m not going to be able to pick up a phone and have anyone show up if there’s a home invasion,” Waddle said.
Joining Waddle at the booth was Mark Cogan, executive director of the non-profit Curry Health Foundation.
Cogan, who also lives in an unincorporated area, said he’s worried that reduced sheriff’s patrols may complicate efforts to combat the methamphetamine problem.
“Curry County is a safe haven for those things, but it’s only going to get worse,” Cogan said.
Aside from Brookings, the cities of Gold Beach and Port Orford also have their own police departments. But domestic abuse is common in small, rural towns like Ophir, which worries Cogan.
“I wonder what’s going to happen out there,” he said.
Cogan said that some 20,000 new homes would have to be built in the county to make up for lost federal dollars (in added tax income). But there’s an inadequate water supply to handle such a surge in residential development, and people are unlikely to move to an area lacking adequate public services.
Despite the one-year federal payment extension, the fact remains that counties like Curry and Josephine must come up with a long-term solution for their funding problems.
As such, Cogan, Waddle and other residents know that “business as normal” won’t work much longer.
