New Cities Prefer Deputies to Creating Local Force : Law enforcement: The cost of contracting with the Sheriff’s Department is a burden. But the alternative can be too daunting.

When Dana Point City Manager William O. Talley scans his budget for next year, one number keeps glaring back at him: $3.4 million, the amount it costs to buy police service from the Orange County Sheriff’s Department.

“Even if we had opted for no increase in service this year, the cost still would have been $400,000 over last year,” said Talley, who manages the beach town of about 30,000 residents. “It’s just another way the county socks it to the cities.”

Indeed, police costs for the four cities in South County that contract with the Sheriff’s Department--Laguna Niguel, Dana Point, San Juan Capistrano and Mission Viejo--are up 13% this year, according to Linda Robinson, contract manager for the Sheriff’s Department.

And now, with the Board of Supervisors studying a proposal to charge cities $75.50 for each person booked into County Jail, those costs may jump even higher.

Unfortunately for Talley and other city managers, there’s little choice in the matter. For new cities in Orange County these days, starting a small-town police department seems to be out of the question.

“It’s not the cost so much as it is the time it would take,” Talley said. “First you’d have to go through the recruiting process of hiring a chief. Then there’s the time spent outfitting people, buying guns and so forth. We’re talking about probably two years of lead time.”

That’s how long it took Irvine, the last city in the county to incorporate and assemble a police department, 18 years ago. Paul O. Brady Jr., city manager of Irvine, was part of the team that recruited a police chief and put together a department.

Brady said small cities have no business trying to form their own police departments.

“I’m a firm believer that cities with less than 50,000 people have a hard time--even though they may want local control--justifying their own police department,” said Brady, a former Santa Barbara County sheriff’s deputy. “You can’t justify it because you can’t compete with other communities, and often (a small-town police force) cannot do the same job a bigger department can.”

Small departments have a hard time competing with the salaries offered by large departments, officials said. Smaller cities often train rookie officers who are then recruited by a larger operation.

“Other people will come along and offer to pay better wages and better fringe benefits,” Brady said.

That’s what was happening in Stanton until 1988, when so many young recruits were lured away to better-paying jobs that the city dismantled its Police Department and hired the Sheriff’s Department.

“Small-city police departments have gone the way of the mom-and-pop grocery store, the neighborhood sporting goods store and the local hardware store,” said Greg Beaubien, assistant city manager of Stanton. “It’s very difficult for small departments in this county, not only on a cost-effective basis but service-deliverywise. It’s hard to recruit officers to work in small cities and then keep them here if you do get them.”

What small-city police departments can offer is local control, said Albert C. Ehlow, chief of the 60-year-old San Clemente Police Department. That, Ehlow added, and a certain camaraderie that exists among a small group of officers patrolling a small town.

“A police department in a small town has more control over what goes on in its own city,” Ehlow explained. “I’m not saying the Sheriff’s Department doesn’t do a fine job, because it does. But I think it’s different working for a large entity than working for a community. There’s a special bonding that develops in a small department. . . . Working in a large department may offer more opportunities, but then more people compete for those opportunities. It’s a trade-off.”

The Sheriff’s Department has tried to adopt the concept of local control by customizing its department to serve individual communities. Excepting overtime shifts, Mission Viejo deputies work only in Mission Viejo and drive department vehicles with “Mission Viejo” stenciled on the sides. The same is true for other cities the Sheriff’s Department serves.

“Our deputies are our deputies and are assigned permanently to us,” said Fred Sorsabal, city manager of the 29-month-old city of Mission Viejo, which will spend $4.88 million for police services this year. “I don’t think local control is a real issue with our police services. We are able to customize our own service level to what we want. If you want more police, you pay more, but you can have them.”

The quality of service provided by the Sheriff’s Department is not an issue, city managers agree. Since the department had already been patrolling the South County communities before they incorporated, it was a natural transition to remain in charge after they became cities, said Assistant Sheriff Dennis LaDucer.

“We already have a close relationship established with the community,” said LaDucer, who also believes it makes economic sense for the smaller communities to turn to the Sheriff’s Department rather than start their own police service. “We have an economy of scale that allows us to spread the costs to all the cities.”

The Sheriff’s Department also offers cities a full-service police force, something many small cities cannot provide for themselves, he said.

“Lots of people say they have a full-service police department, but do they have a bomb squad, or maybe a canine squad?” LaDucer noted.

Eighteen years ago, however, quality of service and local control were the main reasons the city of Irvine formed its own department, Brady said.

“Local control and response time were the issues. This community demanded more police service than the Sheriff’s Department was in the position to provide at that time,” he said. “We were looking to transfer to our own department as quickly as possible.”

Irvine spent its first year under contract with the Sheriff’s Department and then switched to having Costa Mesa police patrol its streets for the next two years, until its own force was ready to hit the streets in 1975.

Although some officials in South County cities like the idea of one day having their own police department, they say the Sheriff’s Department, for now, still offers a better deal.

“As costs accumulate, we’ll take a look at other alternatives,” Sorsabal said. “But as long as the Sheriff’s Department can offer Mission Viejo the kind of service it has been doing for a reasonable price, we’re happy with what we’re doing.”