Highland Heights ends police merger

The following story was written by Jeff McKinney on November 15, 2011 and posted at nky.cincinnati.com. Go to the link and read the comments that have been posted there.

Highland Heights ends police merger

HIGHLAND HEIGHTS – Highland Heights City Council unanimously agreed Tuesday to withdraw the city from the Highland Heights Southgate Police Authority.

The 6-0 vote will end a three-year merger agreement between the police departments of Highland Heights and Southgate.

The cities entered into the agreement to combine the departments in 2008, but Highland Heights had a first reading to exit the authority Nov. 1.

Council’s action means that Highland Heights will give Southgate a 90-day notification that it’s dissolving the authority tied to the interlocal agreement, Highland Heights Mayor Greg Meyers said.

Meyers said the city is disbanding mainly because residents have expressed to council and himself they’re not comfortable with the authority. He said residents contend they are not getting the level of service they were getting from the Highland Heights Police Department.

The cities entered the merger to find efficiencies and save money, but a larger-than-anticipated call volume from Southgate is leading to resident complaints of poorer service, driving the push for a split, Highland Heights officials said.

Meyers expects Highland Heights to form its own police department within three months.

Steve Franzen, city attorney for Highland Heights and board attorney for HHSPA, said a specific date has not been set when the merger will end.

Southgate Mayor Jim Hamberg said Tuesday night, “Our city is looking forward to developing the new Southgate Police Department.”

In other action, Meyers and Highland Heights presented a proclamation and a clock gift to Dave Shaw, the city’s planner from 1994 until his retirement in September. Shaw was honored for his efforts in preparing the city’s comprehensive plan and update during the past decade that set the tone for the city’s growth and development.

Highland Heights, Southgate move to end police department merger

According to an article by Jeff McKinney published on the front page of The Kentucky Enquirer Thursday, November 03, 2011 Highland Heights City Council held a first reading on a measure to withdraw the city from a three-year-old police merger with the City of Southgate.

To paraphrase the article, the merger created a board containing representatives from both cities to oversee the entity.

Among the reasons cited for Highland Heights disbanding the Highland Heights Southgate Police Authority (HHSPA) according to Highland Heights Mayor Greg Meyers is because the residents of Highland Heights do not believe they are receiving the level of service that they had before its creation. Highland Heights council is expected to have a second reading and take a final vote to end the merger November 15. Southgate Mayor Jim Hambeg and Southgate’s Safety Committee have been notified of Highland Heights intent to end the merger.

Meyers said that the HHSPA has an annual budget of slightly more than $2 million dollars and that Highland Heights contributes 60 percent and Southgate 40 percent. The allocation is based on the cities' populations, numbers of businesses each have and the number of police calls made to residents and businesses in each.

Each city would again form their own police departments and divide up the assets, such as cars, between them.

Here are some relevant quotes summarized from the article:

Highland Heights City Attorney Steve Franzen:

The merger dissolution is disappointing as the cities hoped to save some money and increase efficiencies of delivering police service, but it did not happen.

Highland Heights Mayor Greg Meyers:

The merger did lower labor costs, but both cities had fewer police officers to protect a larger combined territory.

It's not a pleasant thing to be doing, but it's the correct move for our citizen services.

Southgate Mayor Jim Hamberg:

The dissolution would be an opportunity for Southgate to reform its police department, sets it own policies and go back to being a community police department for the residents of Southgate.

Some Southgate residents informed me and council members periodically that they were not seeing cruisers as frequently as they used to before the merger.

The entire Enquirer article can be found by clicking here

We hope the leaders of the City of Alexandria look hard and long at this and take these lessons into consideration before they make a decision to enter into some sort of Alexandria-Campbell County Merge. They need to ask themselves if:

1. Would this result in better police services for the citizens of Alexandria.

1. Would this result in a lowering of property tax rates for the tax payers of Alexandria.

We understand that this idea was brought forth by Campbell County and is being maneuvered along with the help of a few other individuals that are truly too close to the issue. The county has contracted for an “independent study” on the merits of a merger. We suspect that the county will get the results that they would like but residents of the city that we have talked to and heard from universally feel that any merger would not be in their best interests while bailing the county out of some uncomfortable issues concerning their own police department.

We would like to see this idea go away. If the county feels that they have problems that a merger would solve for them they should instead take the bull by the horns and straighten out those problems without dragging the City of Alexandria along with them.

We hope there are not but could there be some egos and agendas within the city driving this?

We cannot see any increase in efficiencies, service levels or cost benefits for the citizens of Alexandria should a merger come to pass. We can see advantages for the county.

Unlike Highland Heights and Southgate which both consider themselves losers in their merger there will definitely be a winner and a loser if Alexandria/Campbell County merges, regardless of what the “study” says.