CAMBRIA — Starting today, Cambria residents will see a squad car patrolling the village’s streets. But it won’t be the Cambria Police Department car that former Police Chief Rick Nelson used to drive before the Village Board dissolved the police department a month ago.
The Columbia County Sheriff’s Department has contracted with the village to provide 65 hours per week of police protection between today and the end of February 2010, said Columbia County Sheriff Dennis Richards.
“It gives the citizens of Cambria some coverage,” he said, “and it gives the village board a chance to take a break and decide what to do next.”
Village President Glen Williams did not return phone calls seeking comment.
Trustee Nick McConochie, chairman of the Village Board’s protection committee, said the cost of coverage from the sheriff’s department runs “40-some dollars per hour — which is more than I would like to pay.”
However, he said, the decision means the village will pay about $14,000 less this year for police protection that it would have paid had it not dissolved the police department.
On Aug. 3, the Village Board passed an ordinance that dissolved existing ordinances pertaining to the police department — in effect, eliminating the department and with it, the jobs of Nelson (who was chief for 10 years) and three part-time police officers.
One reason given for the department’s dissolution was budgetary. State law does not allow municipalities to spend less on police protection in 2010 than they spent in 2009. The budget for the Cambria Police Department was about $117,000, of which $59,564 had been spent as of the end of July.
But trustees also cited negative citizen opinions of Nelson’s performance as chief — expressed in an anonymous survey — as a reason for the dissolution.
In the days that followed, the village trustees announced plans to form an ad hoc committee to explore Cambria’s options for future police protection, including hiring a marshal or constable, sharing police service with a neighboring community or contracting with the Columbia County Sheriff’s Department.
The contract with the sheriff’s department, McConochie said, meets the village’s needs for now.
“A lot of residents were fearful for the lack of police patrolling,” he said. “I think we’re doing what the residents want.”
Deputy Village Clerk Lori Kratky said the ad hoc committee has not yet been appointed.
McConochie said the committee’s membership is likely to be announced at the village board meeting on Sept. 14.
When the committee is in place, Richards said, it should take time to analyze the costs, benefits, advantages and disadvantages of each option.
“For more than 40 years, Cambria has had a police department,” he said. “To go from having a police department to nothing is a big step.”
Unlike neighboring Pardeeville — where Deputy Sgt. Richard Hoege is considered the designated local police officer, even though other deputies also work in Pardeeville — Cambria will not have a specific officer assigned to the village, Richards said. The department does not have enough deputies on patrol to designate any one deputy for Cambria, he said.
The number of hours of weekly coverage will stay the same for the next six months, but the scheduling of those hours could vary from week to week, depending on the availability of deputies and the needs of Cambria residents. For example, Richards said, the department would seek to accommodate a common request that an officer be available during the hours when Cambria-Friesland School District students are going to and from school.
Richards said he did not know the exact cost to the village for coverage from Columbia County, but he said the cost will be billed at an hourly rate. Richards said Chief Deputy Mike Babcock worked with village officials to make the arrangements.
Richards said he didn’t know about the decision to dissolve the Cambria Police Department until three days after it was made. But now that the decision is final, he said, Cambria needs some kind of police presence to address issues that don’t qualify as emergencies, such as barking dogs, nuisance vehicles and people drinking alcohol in public.
“We’ll try to make our presence known as much as possible, because a lot of people want to see a squad car going by their homes or businesses.”
But even though the village still has the police department’s squad car — now locked away in a garage — the deputies patrolling Cambria will be in marked Columbia County vehicles.
“The village’s squad car says, ‘Cambria Police Department,’ and that department no longer exists,” Richards said.
ljerde@capitalnewspapers.com