Voters say strong "yes" to keeping DCPD
Tuesday, February 9, 2010 - 9:29 pm
David City voters sent a clear message Tuesday to the City Council: They want to keep a city-operated police department.
The results of the special mail-in election left no doubt - 674 voters said yes; 350 said no. The results will not be official until canvassing is completed on Thursday, County Clerk Vicki Truksa said as the votes were being counted after the 5 p.m. deadline.
Police department supporter Carol Brehm was elated at the news. She was present at the City Council meeting last April when the concerns began growing that the David City Police Department might close as the result of the sale of the police station.
As she said back in April, it was important for a matter of this magnitude to be decided by the voters.
"The people have spoken, and that is what it is all about," she said.
She acknowledged that the city still has issues to settle with the department's operation, including the pay scale that puts the department behind other cities' in the state, and now, the city has no site identified as a police station after next fall.
She said that unlike some other government consolidations that people are seeing in tight economic times, the loss of the police department was not acceptable to voters.
"Given all the information that's been tossed out there we are willing to pay for it," she said.
Brehm, whose husband Vince was not reappointed to his officer position in December, said the city still could recall officers who were not re-appointed or who resigned. Police Chief Steve Sunday resigned in November after he was told he would not likely be reappointed.
Contacted after the votes came in, Mayor Dana Trowbridge said that the voters sent a mandate.
He said the city would need to determine other expenses to cut in order to pay the cost of police operations. This year's city budget showed that the trend of police costs were growing to a level of $550,000 by 2013-14. The city currently takes in just over $500,000 in property tax revenue.
The topic of the police department will not be up for discussion at the regular City Council meeting Wednesday night, Trowbridge said, because the results are not yet official and the topic is not on the agenda.
The special election buildup was mostly quiet. No organized, vocal campaigns developed on either side.
Brehm said that she bought 30 yard "vote yes" signs and still had two she did not distribute to police department supporters.
She said she did not take part in any large scale effort to bring out the votes.
"I decided I didn't want to do that," she said. "I think people knew what was right. I think it was a huge turnout."
Brehm said she was relieved that the election did not have a narrow margin either way.
"It would have been worse only because of the aftermath," she said.
Late in the process, after many votes were already cast. County Supervisors Bill Kozisek and Max Birkel said they supported the option that was presented by the county. They said the county could assume police duties without the expense of building a new police station.
Voters apparently rejected that proposal, in which the Butler County Sheriff's Office would have provided city patrols for a cost of $240,000 to the city. This was in comparison to a city police budget of $437,000 for a six person staff for 2009-10.
Now the department is down to two staff members and is getting patrol assistance from the Sheriff's Office at no cost to the city.
The question on the special mail-in ballot for David City voters was a simple yes or no: "Shall the City of David City, Nebraska, own and operate its own police department?"
The sheriff's option was not a part of the ballot question, and no local group took up the cause of campaigning for the option that Sheriff Mark Hecker first raised last spring after being asked to do so by City Councilman Mike Rogers. It was among nine original options.
The City Council set the election in December, after Council members were deadlocked on another longstanding issue: whether to build a police station in the wake of the September sale of the current station to local egg processor Henningsen Foods.
The six Council members were stalled on three options: building a new station, building a city hall/police station or bringing the police station in to the current city hall. Before December, a building committee was formed that included former Chief Sunday and other city officials. The committee recommended a joint city hall/police station.
Now police station site, with the voters' statement on Tuesday, will return to the City Council's table.
