Police and taxes

[iris lilies]

For the record, I have been quite sarcastic in this thread.

Except foe the problem solver comment, that is TRUTH!

[sweetana3]

For those of us who feel really bad for the victims, I can only hope you never have to experience what they have gone thru. This was for me a serious troubling issue since I have a heart for the victims.

I am now not going to read any of your responses. I am pretty sure you will have some kind of sarcastic comment.

[JaneV2.0]

Have the wealthy incomers hire private security. Problem-solved.

Or better yet! Have the wealthy incomers run for all the local offices, dupe the poor/uneducated electorate there so they vote for the wealth incomers, then have all the wealthy incomers raise the taxes on the poor/uneducated electorate. This way the taxes fund a police force that protects the wealthy incomers in a proper way and the poor/uneducated schlubs pay for it.

No need to reinvent the wheel.

I'm not sure, but I doubt wealthy people are clamoring to get into Grants Pass. It had a reputation as kind of a backwater when I lived in Oregon. It's only claim to fame is being the birthplace o Dutch Brothers' Coffee.

[iris lilies]

Is this the same area that a few years ago voted down public library service? I wonder.

perhaps rheir sherriff' s dept isnt providing good service for the money and they didnt want ro give that department more.

[jp1]

Is this the same area that a few years ago voted down public library service? I wonder.

perhaps rheir sherriff' s dept isnt providing good service for the money and they didnt want ro give that department more.

I agree that if I lived there I'd be looking at the numbers before just passing a tax increase to make sure there wasn't a lot of waste. However, I found another newer article about the situation and apparently they elected a new sherriff in 2015 who is having the same issues where often he'll be the only person working and trying to protect a sizable county landmasswise (1,642 sq. miles according to wikipedia) with 82,000ish residents and constantly running from one end of the county to the other to deal with what would sounded like actual emergencies.

Perhaps they need to take a page from the Fergusson MO playbook and figure out how to monetize the residents with fines for traffic violations and littering and jaywalking or whatever. Then they could hire a boatload of new deputies who would earn their own salaries.

[bae]

I have noticed my county and similar ones nearby have a habit of:

- increasing spending on non-mission-critical stuff
- being forced to spend on unfunded state and federal mandates
- increasing staffing

- running into a budget problem when the economy responds to the normal business cycle downturns

- going to the voters for special levies to make the budget work, and threatening to cut essential "charismatic" services first, like law enforcement, fire/ems, health and human services, parks, ...

My county has gone through this cycle a few times since I've been here. The independently-elected Sheriff and Prosecutor tend to have to issue press releases similar to the Sheriff in the news articles in the original post, pointing out that the county Council is refusing to fund basic expected governmental services.

Still, we seem to always have money to spend on consultants to facilitate meetings developing word clouds for community planning...

[Zoe Girl]

[QUOTE=bae;244038

Still, we seem to always have money to spend on consultants to facilitate meetings developing word clouds for community planning...[/QUOTE]

Facilitation can run the range from the worst to the best. I have been in plenty of the bad, and a couple of the great. Done the best you get things done!! I am finally on a committee that is getting things done, like effective steps to fix serious communication issues in our department. It is very rare. However you can get stuck in lovely word clouds, sticky note boards, and too much sharing. I don't think people know how to evaluate this, they just see that a facilitator is supposed to help.