Calif. city outsources police amid budget woes
A cash-strapped Northern California coastal city has decided to outsource its police services due to its longstanding budget woes.
Half Moon Bay is disbanding its 12-member police force and the city will contract its services to the San Mateo County Sheriff’s Office. City officials chose the sheriff’s office over the Pacifica police department on Saturday, Mayor Naomi Patridge said in an e-mail.
City officials told the San Francisco Chronicle that the $3.5 million police budget is 40 percent of its general-fund spending.
The newspaper said the police force has been cut by 20 percent since 2009, a year after the city agreed to pay $18 million _ about twice its entire annual budget _ to settle a lawsuit over development rights on a 24-acre property known as Beachwood.
Tourism is down sharply, and voters last year rejected a sales-tax measure that would have helped fund the department.
Both agencies have offered jobs to Half Moon Bay’s officers, though they all may not work in the city of about 13,000 residents.
The officers “are concerned about the lack of stability in the organization, whether or not they’re going to have a job in a year or two,” Lee Violett, Half Moon Bay’s interim police chief who works part-time because of budget cuts, told the newspaper.
“In today’s environment, smaller jurisdictions are finding it more difficult to sustain public safety services,” Violett said.