8
community
april26
2011
County Chamber of Commerce Endorses Sheriff’s Measure 5-210
One of Many Major Endorsements of Sheriff’s Stable Funding Drive
The board of directors of the South Columbia
County Chamber of Commerce has voted to endorse
Sheriff’s Measure 5-210: the Sheriff’s Stable Funding
measure on the May 17 ballot in Columbia County.
Chamber Secretary Tricia Stockwell said that
the Chamber voted to endorse the levy campaign after a
six week online poll of the membership heavily favored
the measure’s passage.
Sheriff Jeff Dickerson welcomed the measure’s
endorsement by the Chamber, saying,
“Business leaders intuitively know the relationship
between economic vitality and adequate public safety in
our community. They recognize that this levy measure is
vital to our community and to our safety.”
The Chamber’s endorsement is the latest
in a flurry of endorsements, some of which include:
Columbia County Democratic Central Committee,
Scappoose City Council, Rainier City Council, Columbia
911 Dispatchers, Saint Helens Professional Firefighters,
Scappoose Professional Firefighters,
Columbia River Fire and Rescue Volunteers, Scappoose
Mayor Scott Burge, Saint Helens Mayor Randy
Peterson, Rainier Mayor Jerry Cole, Representative
Brad Witt, Clatskanie Mayor Diane Pohl, Circuit Court
Judges Steve Reed, Ted Grove and Jenefer Grant,
Retired Circuit Court Judge Donald Kalberer, Port of St.
Helens Commissioner Robert Keyser, St. Helens City
Councilman Phil Barlow, and many others.
Measure 5-210 would provide Columbia
County for six additional patrol deputies, three crime
investigators, two sworn supervisors, support staff and
retain two corrections deputies and a jail mental health
program. The measure would levy 62 cents per thousand
of the assessed value of property.
County Could Provide Stable Funding for Sheriff’s Office
continued from front page
and respond to 9-1-1 calls. Often, there
is only one and sometimes no deputies
on duty at certain times; every day, there
are at least four hours where there are no
deputies on duty. It often takes over an
hour for the Sheriff’s Office to respond
to emergency calls.
The lack of adequate coverage
was magnified this past year with the
on-duty death of Rainier Police Chief
Ralph Painter. Painter was tragically
murdered while responding to a call.
“He was alone, with no back-up,” says
Dickerson. “I’m not saying that if we
had previously voted this levy in, that
tragedy wouldn’t have happened. All
I’m saying is, it points out what happens
too many times in this county-- officers
are forced to go it alone, or are forced
to wait interminably long for back-up.
It’s unfortunate, but that’s what happens
right now.”
Additionally the Sheriff’s
department oversees Animal Control,
provides marine patrols on the Columbia
River, issues concealed handgun
licenses, serves civil papers, and
operates Search and Rescue throughout
the County. Overall, the department has
about fifty total employees— distributed
across the various responsibilities of the
Sheriff. “All of these are seemingly little
things, but they are big issues and are
services that only the Sheriff’s office can
provide to the citizens of our county,”
says Dickerson.
Dickerson says he and his staff
have developed what he described as
an “aggressive campaign to inform
people” about this levy. Dickerson says
the campaign was preceded by a poll of
citizens to find out what the tolerance
level for the amount of the levy would
be and to ask what services the citizens
wanted from the Sheriff.
According to Dickerson, what
the citizens said they wanted was 1)
better response times to emergencies,
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2) better coverage and investigators to
deter criminal activities, and 3) support
and back-up assistance for local law
enforcement.
With those goals in mind,
Dickerson designed a program to meet
what the citizens said they wanted. “I
saw that it would be a tremendous
failure for us to tax a lesser amount and
not get the job done,” says Dickerson.
“We wanted to be able to claim success
at the end of the four years and be able
to point to improvements and changes.
We needed to devise a strategic plan
that would implement something that
would benefit the citizens from their
perspective.”
Dickerson says the strategic
plan includes having an officer dedicated
to the Nehalem Valley area, including
Vernonia, Mist and Birkenfeld, for forty
hours a week. There would also be one
officer dedicated to the North County
area and one to the South County area.
“I see tremendous value for us and
the citizens to have someone who is
specifically responsible for those areas,”
says Dickerson.
According to Dickerson, the
polling that was done showed support for
a levy if citizens felt they knew exactly
what the money would go for and that
the money was sure to stay with the
Sheriff’s Office. To that end, Dickerson
was able to get the Board of County
Commissioners to pass a unanimous
Resolution that commits to continue the
current percentage of the General Fund
to the Sheriff’s Office and to keep 100
percent of all new taxes under this levy
in the Sheriff’s Office.
Dickerson knows this is not a
good time to be asking citizens for more
money. But he also feels that the needs
of the community are becoming more
urgent and that now is the opportunity to
get this passed and create secure funding
for the Sheriff’s Office. According to
Dickerson, the campaign has raised
$30,000— about one-third of that
has come from the Deputy Sheriff’s
Association. “We won’t be able to raise
these funds again,” says Dickerson.
“This is our window.”
“It’s a fine line we have to
walk— we don’t want people to feel
like we are using scare tactics,” says
Dickerson. “So we’ve tried to focus
on the positives. We’ve tried to talk
about what will happen— we will get
dedicated patrols, we will get a Nehalem
Valley presence, we will get twenty-four
hour coverage and we will fund three
investigators so we will finally be able to
follow up on some of the crimes.”
Dickerson has tried to be realistic
about expectations for the levy. “The
way I look at it, if we’re going to raise
people’s taxes just to save positions, then
they will feel like they paid more taxes
and didn’t get anything new from it,” he
explains. “We tried to create a program
that would save positions, but also come
up with a plan that is reasonably priced,
as far as I’m concerned, that will add
service.”
“My goal when I took office
was to create the best possible agency
with the resources we had,” concluded
Dickerson. “My vision was to make the
case that the Sheriff’s Office represents
value to the citizens— value worth
investing in. I looked at it like a business
model— how do we create value so that
people can invest in it. Unfortunately,
the investors are low on funds right
now. But we are stuck with a difficult
situation, and we have to ask them for
their support.”
For more information about Measure 5-210,
go to www.sheriffstablefunding.com
