HUERFANO COUNTY — Two weeks after the Huerfano County Sheriff announced his office will no longer patrol in Walsenburg, the city is scrambling to stand up a police department by the new year.
For eight years, the Huerfano County Sheriff’s Office, which is responsible for the county, has agreed to take on law and order in the city after voters chose to dissolve the department in 2016. But late last month, on a Thursday night, the sheriff decided that was no longer the deal.
The letter shot a jolt of panic through the small city of Walsenburg. Despite being in the middle of a negotiation with city leadership, the sheriff reversed course, announcing the end of his office’s service to the city starting January 1.
"I got elected to be the Sheriff of Huerfano County, not the Chief of Police of Walsenburg. And when it starts taking a toll on the county and the citizens and my officers, it's just not worth it," the sheriff told News 5.
On October 1, the city council called a special meeting, unsure of whether a deal could still be reached or if it should be scrambling to form a police department. And the question on everyone’s lips was 'Why is the sheriff deciding this now?' So we went to Walsenburg to ask him.
"The county is getting neglected because it takes two officers per shift within the city limits of Walsenburg all the time. That's all I have on duty, sometimes, is two officers," Sheriff Newman said speaking exclusively to News 5.
But he says his deputies were not missing calls in the county.
"They were just delayed. You know, if we were tied up. Like, it takes two guys to do a domestic violence and then we had a call of a possible burglary or a suspicious vehicle or something. We didn't have anybody to break free, to run out there right away," he said.
City leaders tell News 5 they were surprised by the sheriff’s notice. They’d spent the last two years paying the sheriff’s office for service without a contract, and had a new one in the works.
We asked the sheriff if he feels he is putting the city in a bad position.
"If I was just to walk off? Yes. But, we're not going to walk off. We're giving them the opportunity to start their police department. We've offered to help train them."
Walsenburg has considered a police department before, commissioning economic research firm KGW LLC last year to determine what it would cost. The firm estimated a conservative operating budget of $1.1 million. The mayor and sheriff both say the latest contract on the table allotted his office a budget of $900,000.
We also asked the sheriff about rumors he requested an additional increase to his salary of $20,000 for continuing to cover the city. Below is the exchange between the sheriff and News 5's Megan Cloherty.
Sheriff - "The last eight years I have been doing with no compensation. It's more than doubled my workload, and usually in a larger agency or larger counties, the salaries are set on your duties and stuff, and I wasn't getting compensated for it. So it was a request, but it's that what had absolutely nothing to do with my decision, absolutely nothing."
Megan - "You understand that's hard to believe."
Sheriff - Yeah."
Megan - "Because I mean, you made that request, as I understand it, and then they said no, and then you came back and said, 'Well, we're going to end our contract.'"
Sheriff - "Yeah, no, that absolutely had nothing to do with it. If they offered me $100,000 right now, extra to do it, I still wouldn't do it."
We spoke with a few people in Walsenburg who all agreed this move by the sheriff to cut services was coming. One man described it as a pimple that needed to be popped. Each resident we spoke with supports the return of a police department to focus solely on the city.
"Part of the problem is that we have a lot of drugs here, and there have been multiple break ins. Some of the businesses here have been broken into eight times just this year. So, there have been a lot of people that are afraid to go out at night," said resident Carmel Jlara.
News 5 was there when Walsenburg City Council voted to create its own police force in a special meeting on October 3.
Eight years ago, Walsenburg residents voted to dissolve the police department. Walsenburg’s city attorney Daniel Hyatt says the city can decide to resurrect the police department without voter input. It’s because of how the agreement between the city and county was worded, allowing either side to end the deal after three years. You can find the language about the termination of the agreement here on Page 8, Section 11A.
But starting a new department is not easy and the lion’s share of the work falls on Mayor Gary Vezzani.
"So we have in the budget now about that $900,000 which we offer them to start this next year with. So we'll operate on that, and we're possibly going to try to put a ballot issue together for next year," the mayor told News 5.
He said the next step is finding the right Police Chief for Walsenburg. An upcoming meeting with council will decide the language for the job posting description. As of this publication, the job was not posted on the city's website.
"If we don't pull this off decently and have the public kind of positive about it, I could all backfire … Everybody on council pretty well and agrees that we're gonna go a little slow, make sure we do it right, got the right people," Vezzani said.
The mayor says the city will not have to operate a department that is active 24/7 which will save on costs. He hopes to eventually hire 11 officers to patrol the city of 3,000 people. A grant writer has submitted applications for two state grants for Walsenburg to help fund the upstart costs of a new department.
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