Dear BOT and Editor,

Since the January 9 resignation of our new Town Marshal, no doubt you have been discussing and reconsidering our plan for law enforcement going forward. I’d like to share some thoughts on the matter.

I believe a few folks may remain attached to the notion of having our own Town Police Department -- it’s a nice idea, but I cannot think that is the best plan for anything other than emotional reasons. Our former police department was certainly capable and they were plenty likable. But in real life, a small-town local PD is quite expensive to build, and it’s difficult to maintain. And ours was not any better trained, nor more professional, than the county officers we currently have coverage with from the Sheriff’s Office.

Please hear me out -- there are several very logical reasons why, at this point, we should go forward with the Sheriff’s Office (S.O.) rather than try to re-build and keep our own local police department. The Sheriff’s Office makes good rational and economic sense:

A) To rebuild a local PD, we, as a Town, would need to (again) recruit and interview and hire all new officers; as we have learned, that work is difficult and time-consuming and slow, and it can fail even after we do the work to the best of our ability. Contracting for full coverage with the Sheriff’s Office eliminates that tedious and consuming burden for our Town.

B) Attempting to hire our own PD also means having to train them, especially the less experienced officers. S.O. officers are already trained, and to an exceptionally high level of professionalism. Boulder County Sheriff’s Deputies prove themselves day after day in and around Nederland, and they do it in other communities as well. They bring consistent, experienced, compassionate, professional law enforcement. It’s a proven, reliable group of officers.

C) A local police dept costs a LOT more than contracting full-time with the Sheriff’s Office. Last I saw the numbers, it would save the Town approximately $400,000 per year to contract with S.O., and we would get just as much coverage (and every bit as professional) as we could ever have with our own PD. The community could undoubtedly use those budget dollars to address any number of other legitimate local needs.

D) Sheriff’s Office coverage is more “durable” than local PD coverage. We learned a tough lesson last year -- when you have a small team of local police personnel, all it takes is one or two to exit and the other officers immediately are overburdened; and then the department is fragile, and the Town is back to recruiting all over again. Conversely, with the Sheriff’s Office, if a deputy or two move on, the organization replaces them with other well-trained deputies -- nothing breaks down.

Ultimately, the Boulder County law enforcement agreement is less of a hiring, training and administering burden for Town; it costs considerably less for the Town; the Sheriff’s Office brings high quality, totally reliable and professional policing; and it doesn’t fall apart if an officer or two decide to move on. Boulder County law enforcement is a proven solution that has been working well for us during this interim period, as it historically has for other Boulder County communities on a full-time basis.

For all these reasons, many of us in Nederland are in favor of moving forward on the agreement with the Sheriff’s Office for full-time law enforcement in our town. This continues to be a top priority issue -- let’s please do what we know works.

Scott Papich

Nederland