Ellendale Can Hire Their Own Police

A story in Friday's edition of the Jamestown Sun told us how Ellendale City Council authorized the circulation of recall petitions for Jim Bohannon (archived version), who is the Dickey County Sheriff. The whole story made the city of Ellendale look a little "backwoods" or stuck in the past, in my opinion. I'm not sure if that's because of the content of the story or the way it was written, however.

Right away, I became a little more curious about this, since it just seemed like there was more to the story than was actually in the article. I wrote an email, directly to the mayor of Ellendale, Monica Peldo, and asked her a few questions.

As a pretext, I stated what I thought the story said, with a little bit of investigating on my part. I told her that I know how the press can sometimes get things wrong. I also wrote, "As I understand from the story, Ellendale pays Dickey County $70,000 per year (under a contract) for law enforcement services. Your employee (Dickey County) no longer wants the job, and has decided not to renew the contract. DCSO has a total of five employees that are responsible for law enforcement of over 1100 square miles and somewhere between 5398 and 5757 people. From what I can tell, Ellendale has somewhere between 1490 and 1559 people and is about 1.4 square miles in size... about 25% of the population in about 1% of the total area of the county."

I then started to ask questions. The first was "How come Ellendale can't hire it's own police force? With $70,000 per year being spent on contracting DCSO and that contract ending, the city would have a huge percentage of the amount of money needed for payroll and equipment."

She answered by saying "We can hire our own. The Dickey County Commissioners would like to see this contract remain, this assists in their budget."

Wait a minute... she's the mayor of Ellendale and she wants to keep assisting Dickey County with their budget? I haven't looked into this, at all, but is there some ties between the city and county that I don't know about? Have the County Commissioners said this, publicly? Wouldn't it be in the city's best interest to hire their own police? Considering the answer to my next question, you would think that Ellendale stands to save an lot of movey by doing so.

My second question was "Can you explain what you meant when you said "It is a win-win"?
What I'm having trouble understanding is how this is a "win" for DCSO. Jim Bohannon was quoted as saying "the deputies are always in Ellendale, we have no deputies out on the roads in the rest of the county". I can definitely see how this is a "win" for your city, but how is it a "win" for the county?"

She answered the second question by saying "The deputies are always in Dickey County because this is the county seat and this is where their office is. If you pick up the Dickey County Leader this week there is a list of all the calls made by the Sheriff's department in the last month. (the information was submitted by the Sheriff's office) There were a total of 10 calls in Ellendale. 2 being 911 hang ups, fire response, 2 stolen bikes, 2 noise disturbances, and 4 other misc., issues. I'm not sure that there is a real need for 4 deputies and a sheriff in the county, and then still have no time to patrol the rest of the county."

Okay, so there were only 10 calls in one month, inside the city. Being that there's only 24 hours each day, I imagine that not all 4 of the Dickey County deputies and the sheriff work at the same time. If 10 calls per month is an average (again, I don't know), that means there are about 120 calls per year. It looks like Ellendale is spending about $583 per call, then. Considering that at least 2 took a total of about 5 minutes to take care of (the 911 hang-ups), the price per call is actually a lot higher.

She totally ignored how this is a "win" for the DCSO. I still don't see it, other than the fact that they're getting around $600 per call.

According to Monica, the sheriff is the only person who doesn't want the contract renewed. My third question asks "If a new election is held, and if another sheriff is elected that also does not want the contract to be renewed, what would be your next move?"

She answers, "The contract is part of the job that they are running for. There is a pending contract and if a new sheriff is elected, that is the position that he is applying for. (As did Mr. Bohannon when he ran) If Mr. Bohannon didn't want this contract, he shouldn't have run for office in the first place."

Well, if the contract is a package deal for the sheriff's position, why is it even a contract? Shouldn't it just be in the job description? Also, if he didn't run, who would have?... he was uncontested.

The way I see this whole thing is that it's just politics getting in the way of progress. The city of Ellendale "can" hire their own police force. Because some people that work for the county don't want to stop taking the city's money, somebody gets in the mayor's pocket (or somebody else in the city council) and pushes them to circulate recall petitions.

Hopefully the people of Ellendale will realize what's going on before it's too late.

Posted by: webfeed on Sunday, September 16 at 2:41 PM | Comments (0) | Permalink

Back At It

Well, it hasn't been quite one year, since I last posted to this blog, but I'm done with my extented blogcation, and will be getting back to it, now. A lot has happened in the past year, here. A lot of them, I won't go back to, or let you know my opinion, but some of them, I will.

Just a recap of what this place is about: I will be covering any topics that I find important, here in Jamestown, ND. Sometimes the things I write will be a little "out there", but keep in mind that some of this may be for the purpose of playing devil's advocate, and might not necessarily be my opinion.

When writing, I try to distinguish my actual opinions from sarcasm, but when reading, it may not always be clear.

Just keep in mind that I "do" live in Jamestown, and have lived here for over 12 years. I have nothing but the best of intentions in mind, when voicing my opinions. I do not classify myself as a Democrat or a Republican, and have no connection with anybody in politics.

Due to some problems in the past with spam comments, moderation will be turned on for most posts, but all comments will be approved, unless they are spam, of course. Opposing opinions are welcome and encouraged. There wouldn't be much discussion, if everybody agreed.

Posted by: webfeed on Wednesday, September 05 at 2:36 PM | Comments (1) | Permalink

Whoa! Can We Get Charlie Back?

I could not believe my eyes, this morning, as I read today's lead story in the Jamestown Sun. First, I'll admit that I voted for Clarice Liechty. Next, I'll just say that I'm already starting to wonder what made me do that. Just a few months after she took over the position of Jamestown, ND Mayor, she's starting to say some pretty "wild" things that just make my stomach turn.

I did not attend yesterday's discussion of the 2007 fiscal year budget, and I'm "really" hoping that David Maack (Jamestown Sun reporter) took something out of context. From the way it's written, though, I can't see what context a couple of the statements she made would have fit into.

Speaking about funding for the Independence Day fireworks display, she said, "You talk about it being the mayor’s project," Liechty said to Grabinger. "You have a new mayor and I have my own pet projects." She mentioned the arts and garden club as her two pet projects.

Here's the kicker. Liechty didn’t think spending $7,000 for 20 minutes worth of fireworks was an appropriate use of taxpayer money, and suggested burning down a building. Jeee-sus! Did she actually "say" that?

This just tells me that we made a huge mistake by electing this woman to be the mayor of our city. It tells me that we elected somebody that is too lazy, closed-minded, and unpatriotic to try to come up with some kind of solution. We elected a mayor that would rather burn down a building than find a way to set aside or raise $7000.

To even "suggest" burning down a building, not even ten months after the Orlady Building fire, is simply outrageous!

Kelani Parisien was right, that it would be a shame for the city to give up the fireworks. It's also a shame that we have a mayor who wants to burn down buildings, instead.

I'll be the first to appologize for voting the way I did. I have a feeling this won't be the last of the wild, outlandish comments that we hear from Liechty. This was already too much for me to handle, though. I'm sorry! Can we get Charlie back? ...somehow?

Posted by: Tom Simpson on Tuesday, September 26 at 3:13 PM | Comments (2) | Permalink