The rumor is not true that the Washington Police Department and Sheriff's Office is merging. | Eastern North Carolina Now

    Publisher's Note: We, at BCN, knew of this rumor, which isn't a rumor at all, but we have been too busy to run this one down and report on it. Once again, we appreciate the Beaufort Observer for doing the work, and we thank them for sending us this article of this fine piece of reporting and commentary.

    At least not true at this time.

    The Observer received a tip that the Washington Police Department was going to be merged with the Beaufort County Sheriff's department. We've learn that is not true. Sort of. Here's what we did learn.

    Maybe a year ago, prior to a meeting of the County Planning Board, which Washington City Councilman Doug Mercer is Chairman of, and County Manager Paul Spruill were discussing possible areas where Mercer felt there is duplication of programs in the City and County. One area mentioned was the policing activities and Mercer asked why not merge the Washington Police Department (WPD) and the Sheriff's Department (SO). Spruill told him he didn't have any information on possible costs and was not even aware of whether the SO would even be interested. Moreover, Spruill said he was not authorized to be planning or working on that as a project so if Mercer, felt this was feasible idea, he might want to just check with the SO. Mercer did ask the SO what they thought about it and sometime later the SO developed some numbers for how it might look. Mercer says the numbers indicated substantial savings might be achieved by combining the operations.

    At this point Mercer had not discussed this very preliminary information with Mr. Spruill, the City Council or the County Commissioners. It was, he thought, a private conversation between himself and the SO.

    The word got out this week (2-7-11) that the idea was being discussed. We got the word from a source in the SO who was not authorized to speak to the press.

    Upon finding that this information was apparently in the public arena, Mercer immediately contacted all the members of both boards and informed them of his contacts with the SO and that he had not shared the information since it was his idea and that he was evaluating the information and planned to decide whether to proceed any further.

    We have been told that neither the City Council nor the County Commissioners have discussed the idea formally, although it seems the idea has come up from time to time over the years, but never gets off the ground. And that is where it is now; or so we've been told.

    We've also been told that there's been no decision to merge the two departments but most of the officials we've talked to would entertain considering it but that it is not likely to fly unless it shows that either services would be improved and/or money saved and it is too early to know about that.

    Commentary

    At the public hearing last night (2-9-11) Velma Hickman said in her presentation to the Commissioners on the Hospital issue something to the effect that, and we paraphrase her here, that it is essential for the County to use a sound planning, oversight and systematic decision-making process in order to prevent another catastrophe such as the hospital debacle happening again. We thought that was one of the best points made in the public hearings but little did we expect it to become obvious in another government service function so soon.

    Merging law enforcement departments may be a good idea. But it may not. And most likely it would depend on the details. What is not uncertain is that such strategic decision-making should be properly planned, organized and carried out. Two public officials discussing an idea is one thing. Meetings which produce budget preliminary cost estimates is something else entirely. And Lord knows we hope nobody steps forward next week to announce that "what we really should do is..."

    Remember, public officials had already decided what "we really should do..." about the Hospital before the public knew anything about it. Let's not do the same sort of thing with public safety in the county.

    We commend any public official for tossing out ideas and even in trying to get some preliminary numbers on anything that might improve services or reduce costs. But we do think before the Sheriff responded with a green light (putting together numbers) that the authority to study and do some preliminary planning should have been debated in public by the City Council and County Commissioners. There may even be some other stakeholders maybe who ought to be included early on in the process...such as other municipalities and other services such as fire, EMS, Emergency Preparedness etc.

    Let's always be ready to consider any idea that will improve services and/or lower costs, but let's get the planning process right next time.