City abolishes police force; ends 85-year tradition

The crowd settled into San Carlos City Hall just after dusk. It was a special meeting, held on a chilly Thursday night, as opposed to its normal Monday slot. Television news trucks were parked curbside along Elm Street, reporters waited silently, notebooks in hand.

The issue for San Carlos: Outsourcing its 85-year-old police force to the San Mateo County Sheriff's Office -- a plan that had garnered attention  from the national media and local bloggers alike for more than nine months. In California, the concept was nothing new. More than a quarter of its cities have already contracted out police services in an effort to save money.

Despite the magnitude of the upcoming decision, the banter among councilmen inside the first-floor chamber was light-hearted.

"I saw "The American" this weekend," said councilman Bob Grassili. "Very slow."

In the lobby, mayor Randy Royce, wearing a loose-fitting gray suit and his trademark smile, chatted off-camera with ABC-7 about the evenings's agenda.

"I'm pretty excited about this," he said. "I believe this will be excellent service for $2 million less. I guarantee it will be as good and I believe it will be better."

For those in attendence the outcome was a foregone conclusion. When it came to local law enforcement San Carlos was about to become a trailblazer on the Peninsula. 

And just before 9 p.m., after hearing the concerns of a few residents, - "This is a bitter pill for the community to swallow," said Ken Castle; "We do not support a continued reduction in public services," complained Nancy Parker - the council unanimously voted to  abolish its 85-year-old police department and turn over the handcuffs and gunbelts to the San Mateo County Sheriff's Office.

It's now up to the county Board of Supervisors, and if approved, will take effect on Oct. 31.

"We have people saying, 'Don't mess with my safety'," said Royce. "But change makes you a little better, and a little stronger. I was recently had dinner with other mayor's from surrounding cities, and the mayor of Millbrae said he had two openings for police officers and received 300 applications."

"Police cuts have been growing six percent over the last six years," said Royce. "The cuts will continue if we don't take action.

In an interview later, the mayor said the decision was budget driven. "We would have had to continue to cuts jobs if this hadn't been approved," Royce said.

Despite the fact San Carlos police officers being the lowest paid in the country, police services are the city's largest expense. The city spends $8.9 million a year to maintain its own police department. Under the new contract, the county will charge only $6.7 million, saving the city more than $2 million and leaving its remaining deficit just under $1 million.

"We have to change the way we do business," said city manager Mark Weiss. "It's already been seen in southern California that savings is a reality. If you look athe the budgets of the cities that have done this, [they] are paying 20-30 percent less than their neighbors for police services. If that holds true, we could perhaps change our deficit."

For the city's 26 police officers, employment is guaranteed by the county for one year. But Royce was optimistic about their continued employment under the new plan.

"As other cities follow suit, our officers will move up in seniority, giving them more job security," said Royce. "Their jobs are safer under this new model than they would've been if we decided to keep our own force. We've been cutting police officer jobs at a rate of six percent for the past six years. We would have had to keep cutting."

For residents, police outsourcing raises more concerns about safety than it does about economics.

Last year, Ralph Anderson & Associates conducted a survey for the city of Yorba Linda - one of the more than 100 California cities to have already contracted out their police force - regarding its decision to outsource, and concluded that "...after reviewing budget, staffing, and crime rate data, the cities which contract for law enforcement services pay a lower per capita cost for these services, have fewer staff and have a lower crime rate than those cities with their own police departments."

The survey, however, warns of "variations in data reporting" regarding crime statistics -- notably Sheriff's offices in some counties not writing reports for all incidents, while some cities write more than necessary. But Anderson found no conslusive evidence linking a city's safety with how much it spends on police services.

For officers like Gil Granado, president of the Police Officer's Association, the sentiment was to keep the force intact. 

"I just think once you give away your police department you're at the mercy of whoever is in charge," he said. "The citizens are pretty overwhelmingly against it. We're just going to have to accept it to move forward."