Station Seeks Deputies Who Are Bilingual : Law enforcement: Sheriff’s officials in Santa Clarita want a union rule changed so that Spanish-speaking personnel can transfer there.

Prompted by complaints from the Latino community, sheriff’s officials in Santa Clarita are trying to add more Spanish-speaking deputies to their station by changing a union rule that prevents bilingual personnel from immediately transferring to the area.

Only three of the 157 deputies in the Santa Clarita Valley speak Spanish, forcing Los Angeles County sheriff’s deputies to occasionally rely on jail trusties as interpreters and curtailing communication with more than 15,000 members of the Latino community, said Lt. Marv Dixon, head of operations for the Santa Clarita station.

The station has funding for 11 bilingual officers, who each receive an extra $80 per month, Dixon said. But eight of those positions are unfilled because officials must abide by a union rule that gives deputies with the most seniority their choice of assignment. Local officials want the union to waive the rule and allow them to grant transfers to Spanish-speaking officers first.

“Let’s say there’s a bilingual deputy but he’s No. 50 on the transfer list,” Dixon said. “Right now, we have to wait until he’s No. 1 before we get him, and that could take forever.”

Dixon said there is no telling when the next Spanish-speaking officer will rise to the top of the roster.

Dixon said the station had six bilingual officers in January but three have left.

Deputy Shaun Mathers, president of the Assn. for Los Angeles Deputy Sheriffs, said the union is willing to consider the station’s request. But he said he was reluctant to waive the seniority rule because it is designed to prevent favoritism and other abuses.

“It presents a problem for us to waive it . . . but I’ve worked out there, so I know there’s a need for bilingual officers,” Mathers said.

Jeffrey Hauptman, employee relations director for the Sheriff’s Department, was optimistic about getting the rule waived. However, the way it works, he said, is “if I want something from the union, I have to make a concession for it.”

In the absence of Spanish-speaking personnel, the Santa Clarita station relies in emergencies on AT & T Language Line Services, which provides interpreters over the phone, said Sylvia Hoyos, a personnel assistant with the Sheriff’s Department. The department also has its own translation service staffed by volunteers who visit the station, said Helen Reardon, director of the department’s civilian volunteer program.

County Jail trusties who work as janitors in the station are also asked to act as interpreters, Dixon said.

Those services are no substitute for Spanish-speaking deputies, members of the local Latino community say.

“There’s a desperate need here,” said Ofelia Parris, a community liaison with the Los Angeles Community Development Service Center in Newhall. “If a Spanish speaker wants to stop an officer and say, ‘Go over there, there’s some drug dealing going on,’ they can’t.

“It just makes sense that an agency be able to serve its community’s needs for sheer communication.”

If the union refuses to waive the seniority rule, the city of Santa Clarita, which contracts with the Sheriff’s Department, would be willing to fund Spanish classes for local deputies, Assistant City Manager Ken Pulskamp said.