New Riot Buster?
- Thread starter Doc
- Start date
I would love to see a source for this. I have never heard of this "Sheriff Charge" you speak of.
http://thegazette.com/2012/09/16/small-iowa-towns-turn-to-sheriff-for-protection/
from the article:
More than twice Robins’ size, Grimes has repeatedly rejected plans to start its own department. The largest city in the state lacking its own police force, the Des Moines suburb of 8,246 will pay Polk County $622,672 for coverage this year, said City Administrator Kelley Brown.
That is contracted law enforcement. Cities don't have to contract with the Sheriff but some do for added patrols or other services. The sheriff still has to provide law enforcement services to any city in the county. I have never heard of a "Sheriff Charge" and doubt it exists.
again, from the article:
State law requires incorporated communities to provide law enforcement either through their own police department or a contract with another agency — the county sheriff’s office, in most cases.
basically cities have to provide some kind of police service, either through their own dept. or through a contract (probably the "sheriff fee" bugs was talking about
So we are talking about a negotiated contract between a city and a county. That's a little different than a "sheriff charge." I wonder how many contracts Story County has. Slater maybe? Huxley has their own department I think.
Regarding contracts for law enforcement, it actually makes sense to me. If the cost starts to outweigh the cost of providing for their own department, then they can make that decision (providing that the cost is a reasonable representation of what the additional costs are to the Sheriff's department).
But I think they have to be over 2,500 to be "incorporated" Most of these towns would be served by the Sheriff without contract.
I would guess most of these towns don't have their on PDs.
I grew up in Moravia, an incorporated town, and they have a population of less than 800.
- Mar 27, 2006
- 41,170
- 29,460
- 113
All of those cities are incorporated. There's no 2,500 population threshold.
http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/List_of_cities_in_Iowa
Then I can tell you that there is no requirement to have a contract for LE with the Sheriff in order to receive LE services and there is no additional charge outside of property taxes for those services. So something is erroneous here.
No one is ever? Really? No police, anywhere, are actually criminals hiding behind badges? Wow. Please get out more. I would happily comply with any lawful warrant, but to assume that all police are always absolutely in the right?
Police are in the right 99.9% of the time. It's the 0.1% of the time they are in the wrong that everyone hears about. When's the last time an Iowa officer was in the wrong?
99.9% ? Where are you drawing that figure from? I don't want my comments misconstrued. I think the world of good, honest police. They do a very difficult and thankless job under stressful conditions and we are lucky to have such people filling such roles. Especially in Iowa. Anecdotally, I would say Iowa seems to have very good law enforcement. I think the State Patrol guys are top notch.
My only problem is how certain jurisdictions are turning police into revenuers, or cash cows. That is wrong on so many levels. I also do not understand the quick trigger on dogs nationwide, no matter size, breed, or threat level. The hostile reaction to filming in public is also troubling. Those three things will eventually do great harm to the profession and make a tough job even harder.
Having said all that, let's remember to praise the brave men and women that honor their oaths and do their best to respect liberties while also maintaining public safety.
I just rummaged around in my paperwork pile from being on city council for four years. I found the old sheriff contract, but unfortunately it dies not reference the Iowa Code chapter I'm looking for, and it appear I already tossed the letter from Fitzgerald that provided Code references.
In short - here were our choices as a small town -
1) Form our own police department that covers 24/7. <<Too expensive for a small town.>>
2) Contract with sheriff at his per capita charge, which I think is $50 or $52/person, and based on most recent census numbers. [NOTE - this is how Story County sets in up. In other counties they may choose to use an hourly rate for service, etc.] As per the letter the Sheriff Fitzgerald sent to us, and our insurance provider when we balked at his price and built-in increase of 4 or 5%/year, he said they were answer life threatening calls in our town if we did not sign the contract but not police reports would be filed. The aftershocks of this is that the city may no be secure insurance coverage NOR residents as a result.
-> The irony here, is that if your property is outside the city limits, the sheriff will continue to provide full service to you, and you are not subject to the per capita like your neighbor is inside the city limits.
So true, Iowa municipalities do not have to contract with the sheriff. They can form their own police department.
This was major topic of discussion all four years I was on council. As was what I call the library fiasco. State law also requires municipalities to provide a library. Our town of 300-ish shut the door on our tiny library. When the Ames library got wind of it they sent a letter saying that unless we struck an agreement with a neighboring municipality to provide library services to our resident, our residents were banned form using the Ames library. Ultimately we signed an agreement and cut an annual check to a neighboring town for joint services. I think it's BS but what do you do?
People live in small towns because the cost of living is lower. But after my council experience, I was so tired of being hamstrung by people who want the lower cost of living but expect the same services as they'd receive in a larger municipality AND trying to make our small stream of tax revenue do everything from fix streets to meet the EPA/DNR's sewage treatment standards, remove snow, maintain a city park, provide safe drinking water, etc., etc. AND meet what seems like an inordinate amount of state and federal requirements that you don't think of, like libraries and whatnot.
