Half Moon Bay ponders future policing, structural change

“This is going to be groundbreaking. It is not a trivial change. It is going to require a lot of people to be willing to make change. But we think there is a good reason for it,” Rarback said.

The proposed changes would allow the Sheriff’s Office and the city’s representatives to work and train together under the new organizational structure. Rarback believes the chief of police would have the authority to investigate officer-involved incidents for any misconduct. The chief would then report it to the sheriff for appropriate action.

“We need to take responsibility and accountability for what happens in Half Moon Bay and, right now, we don’t,” Rarback said.

San Mateo County Sheriff Carlos Bolanos said the Sheriff’s Office would not participate in the model discussed in the report.

“They can hire a police chief, but that police chief will have no role in the supervision or management of my personnel,” Bolanos said.

The sheriff maintained the proposal would create several issues for both the Sheriff’s Office personnel and the city, such as the question of jurisdiction over deputies and policies that involve personnel being unarmed. He said the proposal was a nonstarter for his department.

“We would absolutely not work under that arrangement,” Bolanos said.

He noted Half Moon Bay has the right to determine what it wants for police services and who provides the service. However, he thought the Sheriff’s Office had done a phenomenal job for 10 years providing service to Half Moon Bay.

“I think they have a very generous arrangement compared to what they used to pay for their own police department,” Bolanos said.

Bolanos was open to talking about amendments to Half Moon Bay’s contract and working with the city. However, he noted the city had the final decision about its future direction and what sort of police services it wanted for the community.

“They have to figure out what direction they want to go in,” Bolanos said.

Rarback said Half Moon Bay did not need eight full-time armed deputies for public safety. Instead, it needed a mix of armed deputies from the county with mental health workers and community service personnel.

“The vast majority of the work that is involved in public safety does not require armed responses,” Rarback said.

The city’s one-year contract extension for law enforcement services with the Sheriff’s Office is around $3.3 million, a 10.8% increase from the previous year. The increase was primarily due to deputy salaries and benefits, equipment maintenance charges for vehicles and a service gap for the past three years. The city has contracted with the Sheriff’s Office for 10 years for police services, but both Jimenez and Rarback are pushing for change to policy and control, with support from sections of the community for immediate action.

City Manager Bob Nisbet noted there was a five-year contract in 2011 with three three-year options. The final option would start in 2022 and go to 2025. Nisbet said the city had saved around $750,000 per year using the Sheriff’s Office. The city saved around $500,000 in its first year. Nisbet was concerned about what a new proposal might mean for the 2021-22 budget, which will be presented for final approval at the June 15 City Council meeting. He described the upcoming budget as balanced but lean. Nisbet said a new department as proposed would change the budget, and city staff would have to reconvene and figure out how to pay and allocate funding.

“There’s no fat in that budget,” Nisbet said.

Nisbet will look to the council for direction June 15 on how it wants to proceed, noting it was up to them to discuss and get community input before providing guidance to staff.

Rarback noted the potential change would meet lots of resistance but believed a solution could be reached. He hopes the June 15 meeting will end with an agreement and clear council direction about what it wants for staff.

“If I didn’t think it was feasible and realistic, I wouldn’t have started it,” Rarback said about the proposed change.

curtis@smdailyjournal.com

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