St. Ignatius council hashes out police coverage problems
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ST. IGNATIUS – Town and county officials said on Sept. 2 that they will try to better coordinate work schedules to provide more law enforcement coverage for St. Ignatius as the municipality enters its fourth month without a police chief.
The council has grappled with citizen complaints of increased crime and public safety hazards since former Police Chief Jeffrey Ferguson resigned June 3. As the town council works to find a new full-time officer, a part-time officer has been handling calls when he is on duty, but doesn’t provide anywhere near 24-hour coverage.
Lake County Undersheriff Dan Yonkin said his department has been picking up the slack in emergencies, but a lack of communication between the sheriff’s department and the St. Ignatius Police Department has led to some problems with delivering appropriate service. The sheriff’s department often responds to crimes that are major felonies, or crimes like fraud, that often cross over into county territory.
“There have been ongoing issues,” Yonkin said. “Calls come in and they go unanswered for quite a few days. We had an issue last week with that very problem. The sheriff’s office was not really aware of when (the Mission officer) was working and scheduled for a shift so we know whether or not we need to send out an officer, or if it is something that can wait for two or three days.”
Yonkin said having a schedule reported to dispatch will help sheriff’s deputies and part-time officers make sure they aren’t duplicating labor. He said the police department can also make a formal courtesy call on larger cases to ask for assistance from the sheriff’s department. Yonkin said he believes improving the lines of communication between the agencies will help alleviate some of the concerns of community members.
“(Dispatchers) can provide that information when people call,” Yonkin said. “They can say ‘We are going to leave it on the board for a Mission officer. He should be out on Friday at 3 p.m.’ We can kind of give the public an idea. I think with dissatisfaction from the population, people might understand that a little better than ‘He will call you at some date in the future.’”
Mayor Charley Gariepy said he would try to improve communication.
Some victims of crime in St. Ignatius have also taken an approach of reporting incidents that has exacerbated the delayed response times. The individuals have tried to report crimes only in the hit-or-miss time periods when the part-time officer is working. The officer stuck a notice on town hall last week letting the community know that they should report all crimes to the sheriff’s office dispatch or through 911. This allows the dispatcher to relay the concerns to the officer as soon as he goes on shift, which can lead to more timely response, according to Yonkin.
“Don’t call the cell phone number for the town cop unless you are inviting him to come talk to your organization next week or something like that,” Town Attorney James Lapotka said.
City councilmembers said they hope to have a full-time officer hired soon to cut down on the juggling needed to handle the town’s approximately 1,000 emergency calls that happen every year. Finding a suitable candidate for the $16 per hour job has been challenging, councilmembers said.
“We need a cop,” Councilmember Annie Morigeau said. “We need people to apply for the job. We need people to want it. Right now we’ve got some people we’re looking at, but if they don’t want the job … We’re trying to do the best we can.”
The council authorized Gariepy to conduct background checks on three applicants for the position, and said they hoped to report progress on the hiring front at the Oct. 7 meeting.
