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HomeMy WebLinkAbout04/16/2012 Work SessionCity of Springfield Work Session Meeting MINUTES OF THE WORK SESSION MEETING OF THE SPRINGFIELD CITY COUNCIL HELD MONDAY, APRIL 16, 2012 The City of Springfield Council met in a work session in the Jesse Maine Meeting Room, 225 Fifth Street, Springfield, Oregon, on Monday, April 16, 2012 at 6:00 p.m., with Council President Pishioneri presiding. ATTENDANCE Present were Councilors Pishioneri, VanGordon, Wylie, Moore, Ralston and Woodrow. Also present were City Manager Gino Grimaldi, Assistant City Manager Jeff Towery, City Attorney Matthew Cox, City 'Recorder Amy Sowa and members of the staff. Mayor Lundberg was absent (excused). She was in Washington DC for the United Front trip as the City's representative. 1. Lane County District Attorney and Sheriff's Office Update. City Manager Gino Grimaldi presented the staff report on this item. The purpose of tonight's work session was to receive a briefing regarding the impact of pending budget reductions in the District Attorney and Sheriff s Office. Council would need to meet later to discuss how Springfield's Police Department would handle some of these reductions. Mr. Grimaldi introduced Lane County District Attorney Alex Gardner, Mr.' Gardner said the upcoming budget reductions were slightly worse than they had anticipated. He provided some statistics, first from the Sheriff s Office. In 1979, there were 99 deputies on patrol. For 24/7 posts, that was about 16 -18 people on the road at one time. Last year there were 16 deputies, this year there were 14, and next year there would be 5. Lane County was 4600 square miles, about the size of Connecticut. With only 5 deputies, there would not be enough deputies to staff one post 24/7. Staffing needed to be arranged so there was some capacity for backup. He noted that the. State Police had also been reduce&in size. In 1979, there were 800 sworn officers and there were 300 today so they no longer had the reserve capacity to make up for the County's deficiencies. In 1979, there were about 24 -26 detectives in the Sheriff s Office and there were now four. That meant that the citizens in rural Lane County had learned over time not to report crime. Mr. Gardner said the DA's Office used to have l a investigators and.n.ow had two in the criminal division. Their support enforcement division had been protected as it was reimbursed for the most part by the Federal Government because they had performed at a high level. The Medical Examiner's division of the DA's Office did a lot of work. They normally had 1000 bodies in which they were called in on during an average year. These were unattended deaths. He explained. The more troublesome cases involved questionable deaths which needed experienced examiners to determine cause of death. They should be staffed with 6 -7 people, but they had done the work with only two people for many years. This year, the Medical Examiner's Office would be gone. They were trying to find a way to respond to the large number of deceased. Of 400 they would normally take jurisdiction of, they would perform about 200 autopsies. Because they did not have their own morgue, they had been leasing space and some staff from Sacred Heart. The County was no longer able to pay, for that City of Springfield Council Work Session Minutes April 16, 2012 Page 2 service so had been doing what they could with part-time staff remaining. The budget for those things would also be going away. This was not a service. that could be provided by volunteers. The net reduction in his office was 19 FTE this year. He would be able to mitigate some of the damage to the employees, but not to the public. They could contract with the City of Eugene for some Municipal Court prosecution and they hoped to. receive a HIDTA (High Intensity Drug Trafficking Area) grant that would allow them to do some narcotics work. Mr. Gardner said the way he had to prioritize the work was by the highest personal violence cases. Those cases took a lot of time and experience so most senior DA's worked those cases. They could manage about fifty cases a year for those types of cases. The younger DA's who worked on DUII's and other smaller crimes handled up to 700 cases a year. There were also middle of the road crimes which included career forgers, residential burglaries, car thefts, etc. The DA's that managed that case load handled between 250 -350 cases a year. The -bulk of the cuts coming out of their criminal division were coming out of drugs and felon prosecution of property offenses. Losing nine Deputy DA's meant there were about 2400 -3000 cases that would not be getting prosecuted. When a police officer made an arrest, if there was no DA to file the case, the person was released. People who were arrested selling heroin in cities in Lane County had no consequences because in many ways the Sheriff s cuts were much deeper. The Sheriff's Office was down to about 120 jail beds. Average towns in the USA had about 69 beds for 1000 crimes reported. Oregon had less jail capacity than the national average at about 62 beds per 1000 reported crimes. Several years ago, Lane County was down to 8 %2 beds per 1000 crimes reported. They were able to add some beds with some additional funding which brought the figure up to about 14 beds per 1000 crimes reported. If things remained the same in Lane County's budget, they would have about 120 beds which averaged 5 -9 beds per 1000 crimes reported. They had as many as 32 offenders in custody at Lane County jail on homicide charges, so the remaining beds were full of high -risk offenders. Many dangerous people were being released. At that capacity, Lane County was not able to comply with Oregon law which required Measure 11 offenders to be held unless they posted security or the judge found they were not a threat to the community. Mr. Gardner said the loss of the Medical Examiner function was effective May 19, 2012. The DA's office was working with partner agencies to find some short-term way to deal with this. The challenge was that someone had to .notify next of kin and make a finding of cause of death. Today it was very difficult to get family physicians to sign death certificates if they hadn't seen the patient in several years. Funeral homes couldn't process people to funeral services, cremation or burial without the necessary paperwork in place. This was an essential function of government that many people didn't consider.It.was difficult to imagine that the corrimunity would tolerate this level of public safety dysfunction. Lane County had been in crisis for 3.0 years, but this was now past profound. Springfield Police Chief Smith could provide more detail on how these cuts would affect Springfield. He provided an example of how the questionable deaths would be addressed. Someone would need to come in to determine whether or not it was a homicide and that would be very expensive if brought in on a contract basis. Ultimately, all citizens would pay more for the Medical Examiner service than if. it was funded through Lane County. Councilor Moore asked if Lane County and City of Eugene elected officials had heard this information. Mr. Gardner said he had not presented to the City of Eugene, but had made it known through emails and media. The people that would ultimately suffer would be the victims of violence. City of Springfield Council Work Session Minutes April 16, 2012 Page 3 Councilor Wylie noted a television show she had seen that showed a flash mob robbery. The brazenness of lawlessness was scary and that frightened her. They had always had good law enforcement, but as criminals found there was no consequence they would become brazen. It was much harder to put the system back together again once they got to that point. Mr. Gardner said the city police were great on high risk calls and assisting the County when they could. People who were not involved in law enforcement had different ideas of how to manage crime. There was an ebb and flow of different types of crime, and crime actually went up when the economy improved. Many crime categories had dropped in part due to Springfield's jail, and had dropped significantly in Springfield because of the jail. When crime went down_ , people got complacent. Public safety needed to remain solid. There was a lot of vigilante talk among rural residents due to the frustration of no law enforcement response. Councilor Pishioneri thanked Mr. Gardner for attending. He noted the Lane County Jail experienced about 14,000 bookings per year and only had about 120 jail beds. He commended the District Attorney's crew for doing an excellent job with the tools they had, but they needed more tools. He would do anything in his power to get the system back on track. Councilor Ralston asked what it would take for a ballot measure specific for public safety. Mr. Gardner said it would require funding, but it was less clear how that would be accomplished. Personally; he felt the County should have a modest, focused, targeted measure. In the short term, they would need a serial levy. A levy of $0..90/$1000 would cover the deficit of $15M and could show citizens they were getting something for their money. A levy of $1.10/$1000 could show rural citizens they were getting something for their money. One' thought for better coverage in the rural areas was that by having deputies living in outlying communities, they would have a better visible deputy presence. It was important for citizens in rural Lane County to feel they had some law enforcement presence. He would be inclined to go with the smaller figure. A measure could go on the ballot by citizen signature or by having the Lane County Board of Commissioners put in on the ballot. He would prefer that it came from citizens so the community had more of a sense of ownership. He felt there was contempt of government, so he would be happy to have citizens step up and take the lead. Councilor Woodrow said she had heard Mr. Gardner speak on this .issue for many years. The general public had so many things that had gone on over -the last four or five years that they may not have noticed the decline if they had not experienced it personally. Mr. Gardner said in community meetings he attended, he heard from people that they were tired of those in government asking for funding. Councilor Woodrow asked what they could do to get people's attention. These were core services and were expected by the citizens. She asked how the councilors could help. Mr. Gardner said he didn't know how to get their attention, other than citizens experiencing the lack of service as victims. He noted a horrific case in California that resulted in a great deal of funding following. a lot of sharing with the public. Unfortunately, that was the type of thing it took to get people's attention. Councilor Woodrow said it seemed like we needed to hit bottom and hadn't reached there yet. City of Springfield Council Work Session Minutes April 16, 2012 . Page 4 Mr. Gardner said he and the sheriff hoped this was the bottom and that there wasn't a step beyond. They were both very concerned that if nothing was done they would see families get hurt. Councilor Moore said she had heard of tiered funding for Deschutes County which meant people in Bend were not paying as high of a rate for the County law enforcement. Some of the services now being cut at Lane County would affect citizens in the cities more than in the past. She asked for Mr. Gardner's opinion on the.tiered tax and if it could help pass a serial levy. Mr. Gardner said it was narrowly successful in Deschutes County. He felt it made sense, but there were a number of challenges including creation of a service district which would require the cities of Eugene and Springfield to approve of an amendment to the Metro Plan. The last time they looked into this type of district, Springfield was willing to participate, but Eugene was not. One reason they had been opposed was that a tax district took priority over serial levies. They had tried to figure out how to share the management of such a district with the cities. The biggest problem in the short-term was that it took a very complicated legal arrangement to get everyone on the same page. He felt it could be done with the current cuts. Another factor was how best to communicate that to the citizens so they trusted it and thought it was sensible. The more complicated things were, the less trustworthy they were to citizens. They were looking, instead to find a short-term bridge such as a serial levy, and then communicate to the public that they would be le looking for a long -term solution for the citizens to approve in several years. Councilor Wylie said it was a hard sell to people because of the economy. People were looking at where funds were going they were already paying. They felt their money was going into high salaries and PERS retirements, and the people had no more money to give. They didn't understand the cost of doing business for the government was very expensive. Springfield had been fortunate to have voter support both Police and Fire levies in the past. It had been on a good faith approach to the voters. The concept of becoming a lawless community was scary. They needed to relate what that would cost to the citizen. Mr. Gardner said the amount of taxes that went to Lane County per household was relatively small, just under $1.28/$1000. He noted many of the larger metro counties that had a higher tax rate. In response to Councilor Wylie's comment regarding PERS, he explained that personally, his wages had doubled since 1998, but the PERS estimate was 35% less than in 1999. Councilor Wylie understood but said many people didn't have any retirement Councilor VanGordon said he appreciated their work. He liked the idea of focusing on a short-term bridge and wished there were better solutions. He encouraged Mr. Gardner to come back to talk to the Council more. He would be willing to talk to citizens about this issue and advocate that we needed public safety. What happened at the County level affected the City. The rest of the Council agreed that they would be willing to have those conversations. Mr. Gardner said many times the people served by Lane County, in circumstances such as rescues along the river an&traffic accidents in rural areas, were city residents. They needed to look at law enforcement as a region. Councilor Moore said she would be willing to talk with citizens and, to get signatures. She couldn't imagine there wouldn't be other elected officials willing to do the same. She was convinced people City of Springfield Council Work Session Minutes April 16, 2012 Page 5 were reasonable if they were spoken to reasonably. Many people worried about their own lives and had trouble looking beyond.. Councilor VanGordon said this had been going on for 30 years. He asked if this was as bad as things would get or if it would continue to get worse. Mr. Gardner said this was the steepest drop, but things could get worse. One of the challenges was that there was no more Federal funding. Councilor Woodrow said the City had a Police levy coming up this Fall and she wanted to look at how they could address both the City and County during public inforums. The difficult part was that Springfield residents often had a disconnect with the County. Chief Smith said in 2006 when the City went out for renewal, the County was also going out for a tax measure. At every neighborhood group he talked to, he spoke about the importance of Lane County and the City's dependence on many of the programs provided by the County. During that election, the County's measure passed in the City of Springfield precincts, but not in other areas of Lane County. Councilor Ralston said Springfield couldn't solve the problem.. Councilor Pishioneri said the only border the DA's office was concerned with was the County border. Many of the crimes they prosecuted were within city limits. The DA's office dealt with a larger portion than the Sheriff's office. Citizens in Springfield were paying more for parks than for core services. He felt the citizens didn't really understand the difference in the costs. Mr. Gardner said the supervision piece was important for community safety and funding. Lane County received. about $9M in community corrections funding from the State of Oregon. That money was apportioned based on Lane County's proportion of the offender population. He provided an example of how the funds were distributed using a percentage of number of offenders. Currently, Lane County had about 3100 or 3200 on supervision. If the County couldn't prosecute people, their share of the State Corrections funding would be diminished. It would take four or five years to recover during which they would be losing about $3 -$4M per year. He had talked with the Governor's office at the State Police Headquarters. The State's first response was that the County had to provide the Medical Examiner function. Mr. Gardner said he understood the requirements, but with no funding was unable to provide certain services. He said he was very grateful for the support from the Council. Councilor Pishioneri said the Council was very supportive of the County's work. He invited Mr. Gardner to share any ideas with the Council at a time when they could assist further. Mr. Gardner said he would wait to hear from Mr. Grimaldi. Councilor Ralston said they needed to get the same level of support from Eugene Councilor Woodrow said the more information the Council had, the more they could share with the citizens. Mr. Gardner encouraged councilors to email him with questions or if they wanted more information. City of Springfield Council Work Session Minutes April 16, 2012 Page 6 Councilor Moore said it would be nice to have concise information, especially related to the Medical Examiner, as well as the DA's Office and the cuts they were facing. Councilor Pishioneri asked Mr. Gardner to provide that to the City Manager who could share it with councilors. Councilor Wylie said she would also like to see a fact sheeting comparing staffing and population today with 1979. Councilor Ralston said he had an old flyer that listed all of the crimes that would not be prosecuted. It was astounding. Mr. Gardner said they would not be printing that type of list again because it had negative consequences. That list would now be.much longer. A meeting was scheduled with all of the Chiefs to discuss how they could triage the services. They would be looking at law enforcement partners to- identify the people that represented the biggest risk. ADJOURNMENT The meeting was adjourned at 6:58 p.m. Minutes Recorder — Amy Sowa Christine L. Lundberg Mayor Attest: j;A_ Amy So City Recorder