Ashland, Talent to continue police partnership
Dec. 7—A three-year partnership between the police departments of Talent and Ashland will continue to weather the storms of inflation and staffing shortages, said Ashland police Chief Tighe O'Meara.
"In preparing for this presentation I pondered on the question, 'What's in it for us?' and the answer is we lean on them," O'Meara told Ashland City Council during a study session Monday evening. "They're there at 3 o'clock in the morning to back us up; they're there for the Halloween parade, Fourth of July — they're our closest partner geographically."
The chief described the partnership in light of a recently completed research project, the Police Consolidation Study, commissioned by both departments from Southern Oregon University. The departments went Dutch on the cost of the $30,000 study on how best to continue the regionalization efforts between Talent and Ashland.
The complete results of the study won't be released yet, O'Meara said, but he provided a basic sketch of its results. The study gave Talent three options, all costing over $1 million.
Talent can build up its own police department to full staff — to his knowledge Talent is working on this, he said — for a cost of $1.6 million. For $1.3 million it can continue to lean on Ashland Police Department to cover its gaps, and for $1.4 million it could lean more heavily on Phoenix, instead.
Talent's budget for 2022-23 is $19 million while Ashland's is around $260 million. Talent's population is estimated at 6,100 residents. Ashland can add to its 21,600 residents around 400,000 tourists and the many SOU students living on campus and around the university.
The partnership between the two departments began three years ago, O'Meara explained, when Talent's police department shriveled to such a severe degree it needed help.
"In 2019, we had about 30 (officers). In 2020, for various reasons, the Talent Police Department saw a significant staffing drop while we were still in good condition," O'Meara said. "Talent and Ashland started talking about the possible consolidation of police services."
Talent has eight sworn officers at full strength while Ashland was once budgeted to hire as many as 32 officers, though that number has never been fully realized. Talent also historically has not had the capacity to hire detectives.
In 2020, Talent was down to only one commanding officer, meaning junior officers were stuck working the night shift without the assistance or supervision of experienced officers.
"Eventually, we got to the point where the city of Ashland was covering 12 hours of patrol shifts for the Talent community. Initially between 7 p.m. and 7 a.m., the police officer patrolling the streets of Talent and responding to calls for service was an Ashland police officer, under contract, through this partnership," he said.
But as 2020 wore on, Ashland began to see its own police staff dwindling, and eventually, O'Meara said, Ashland could no longer spare officers for Talent's night shift.
"Where we found ourselves at — and where we are successfully climbing out of — we were operating with 28 full-time sworn officers," he said. "We had at one point about 19 or 20 open positions for Ashland police officers — which is why at one point we had to step back and handle our own business instead of handling the neighboring community's business."
Ashland continued to make its detectives, training and gun range accessible to Talent police, O'Meara explained.
Now Ashland officers can cover a night shift for Talent sometimes, at a cost of $110 an hour, a price tag he said probably needs to be updated.
City Councilor Stephen Jensen asked why Ashland's police department got to be so scant. O'Meara attributed it to three factors.
"Some of it was just bad luck. We had retirements that happened to fall in this time frame," he said. "Some of it is that we are always at risk of losing officers to bigger departments. The sheriff's department has K9 and SWAT, and marine deputies, and this that and the other thing that we can't offer.
"Part of it is that given the social and cultural events of 2020, some people decided that they just could not handle the stress of being a police officer in 20th-century America, for various reasons. The tide was against American law enforcement," he said.
In 2020, he said, around four Ashland police officers, with 15 to 20 years of experience each, determined they did not want be police officers anymore.
"That right there is a really clear picture that, at that moment in time, law enforcement ranks simply took a hit. People decided they didn't want to do it anymore. I think the pendulum is swinging back on that," he said.
O'Meara said he was confident the department would be fully staffed in 2023. Ashland is three officers shy of that goal now.
"It's been a long haul, and knock on wood we don't get knocked back down. If we do, we'll figure it out," he said.
Reach Mail Tribune reporter Morgan Rothborne at mrothborne@rosebudmedia.com or 541-776-4487. Follow her on Twitter @MRothborne.
Correction: This article originally incorrectly stated the budget of the city of Ashland at $800 million. It was been corrected to $260 million.
