Deseret News | Reader comments: Holladay torn about police proposal

Reader comments
Holladay torn about police proposal

Trim the fat | 12:51 p.m. June 5, 2009

As a taxpayer, I would hope that our elected leaders will cut as much overhead as possible. Everyone in the County should go with the UPD.

Re: Trim the fat | 12:57 p.m. June 5, 2009

Agreed, the UPD is the best way to go. I hope Holladay doesn't fall for Cullimore and Russo's power grab. The residents of Holladay will be the ones stuck holding the bill for Cottonwood Heights' ill-conceived and wasteful Police Department.

ME | 1:19 p.m. June 5, 2009

They should absolutely have their own police force. The SLCS Office chronically underenforces the law. Deputies HATE DUIs. They are lazy and don't really care about local needs. A local police force would be tied to the community and actually enforce the law instead of driving people home without a citation when they've been driving drunk.

Comments continue below

Odd | 1:29 p.m. June 5, 2009

Cities may "complain" that officers go outside their city to "help" other areas...but think about it. Doesn't it make sense if you have a very bad thing happening nearby (and you're the victim) that EVERYONE that can help curtail the crime responds? I find it odd that a city will complain, yet expect nearby jurisdictions (sworn officers, K9, crime scene, etc.) to respond to help them!! Very selfish. From the "citizen" side, I'm really tired of all of the "chiefs" complaining and COSTING us tax money so they can have their own kingdom. From the victim side, I'll take any help I can get to curb crime. I think these selfish cities are losing focus! (And costing me money for flawed arguments of better service.)

Why not? | 2:14 p.m. June 5, 2009

You got your own School District, why not your own Police Force?

c4mackk | 2:34 p.m. June 5, 2009

I hear that Cottonwood Heights police department has a weekly quota on tickets to make up the budget short fall. They in the red after paying for all thoose new Dodge chargers they drive. I tend to belive the existing Sherriff department would better serve Holliday than another politician who own best intrests are being served.

to Why not? | 2:42 p.m. June 5, 2009

I live in Holladay and No, we don't have our own School District. We are still part of Granite. I hope I can be there at that meeting they are having next Thursday so I can get more information than this article is giving. I think there's a lot more involved.

How can it be better... | 3:10 p.m. June 5, 2009

...when you have to add (and pay for) a new cadre of administration, new office support (computers, etc.), a new building and associated overhead(?), new dispatch support, new training and other peripheral support, etc., etc. Thus providing even the same level of service (let alone better) on a budget equal to the amount currently paid to the unified police agency, is impossible. These additional perpetual costs will have to be recovered by reducing costs elsewhere - and there is only one other place to re-cover from - the costs associated with officers on patrol. Thus there cannot be equal quantity of patrol service - there simply must be fewer patrol hours, or an increased budget. Small scales are never as cost effective as larger scales of operation - never.

As for improved quality - well, decreased patrol hours is not a good start. Quality is also influenced by who gets hired - and that is a crapshoot no matter which police force your talking about - there is never a guarantee on what you're going to get. And all government entities have a tough time (due to the nature of government HR policies) of getting rid of incompetence.

Next up? | 3:26 p.m. June 5, 2009

I think Kearns should dump the sheriff too and contract with Draper. Makes about as much sense. Then Magna can follow suit and contract with Tooele City.

Overhead nightmare | 3:50 p.m. June 5, 2009

What is Cullimore smoking?
Save money by adding another layer of bureaucracy? He is looking for a sucker to help him pay for the growing administrative costs for his city.

Look at what happened to the Jordan School district split; they are wasting tons of money with new buildings for administrators. How do these people get elected???

Marc S. | 4:27 p.m. June 5, 2009

Holladay City has lost the Mall, TGIF, Verns, Partners, now the Sheriff's Office?? I have lived her since 1975. This is a great city that needs to focus on more important things then what is working great, Sheriffs services. The City Council and mayor need to understand that residents here do not want to change. We want our village center finished, the mall started, more community business and less government interference. I see what Cottonwood Heights City has done and I am not happy. The building, overbuilding, traffic, increase in crime, more tickets and Road Blocks, (I was stopped at their Road Block last week on Highland Dr, no ticket but what a harrassing experience).
This is a great place, lets not mess it up.

Not cool in Cottonwood | 8:28 p.m. June 5, 2009

To all the Holladay homeowners: Beware of the Cottonwood Heights Police. They have ruined our city and made it a place that you dont want to live. After several calls to the mayor, they are finally stoping the tickets. He promised that the cops will stop radaring so much. But now they are coming on our property and checking to see if we left our doors opened. I lived in Murray and move to Cottonwood Heights 6 years ago. I have started to look at homes in Holladay and Murray and will move as soon as I fine a house. However, If you get the Cottonwood Police, I will not be moving to Holladay.

Barry | 10:55 p.m. June 5, 2009

I read this article earlier in the day and was thinking about what my City of Hooladay should do.

UPDATE, UPDATE, Well, I was just stopped at a ROADBLOCK on Wasatch Blvd by the Cottonwood Heights Police. I was detained for 5 minutes for no reason and finally let go when I was forced to produce all my documents. My wife and I were shocked and offended. When I asked for the reason I was stopped, I was intimidated by 4 officers including a short rotun man (seem to be incharge) that was not in uniform who 'encouraged' me and my wife to leave, 'now'.

Mayor Dennis Webb and Holladay City Council (Grant Orton), I want NOTHING TO DO with the Cottonwood Heights POLICE. I do not want them in MY CITY.

THE TRUTH | 12:02 a.m. June 6, 2009

Holladay City is looking to save a buck or two as their city dies around them. Randy Fitts has run this place into the ground. I hear Fitts is soon to be fired for his antics and based on the Mayor's choice not to run again.
The 900,000 start-up cost will be paid by Cottonwood Heights taxpayers. Cullimore doesn't think you saps will mind though... just ask him. If the residents don't show up to resist this disaster in the making you deserve everything you will get from Russo and his Raiders.
For those of you that were "caught" in the road-block... get used to it as it has just begun. The trick CHPD uses is to stop cars in the border areas so the likely hood of non-residents being stopped is greater and the calls to the mayor are less.
Hopefully Cullimore's daddy's company will fail soon as he is running it into the ground and he and the village idiot will take leave.
One last note. CHPD's claim of the SO being out of the city is a joke. Ask Midvale how often CHPD is in their city...

Honker | 8:13 a.m. June 6, 2009

As long as they enforce the "NO HONKING RULE" Holliday will be a better place.....that's what we need police for....not to nab skateboards luging down my street in the pitch black (someone is going to get hit soon), or even the people who do 50 mph in a 25....it the HONKERS who should pay.

UPD? | 9:31 a.m. June 6, 2009

as in Utah Police Department or what? I've been away from the country for a while and UPD sounds new to me? If it is, then are they thinking about consolidating all local Law Enforcement Agencies in Utah, under UPD? Just wondering. My Mom lives in Holladay and from her emails, she mentioned actually going to the County Sheriff's building at times when she has a concern, because it seems like when she calls them on the phone, she never gets a response back from them. Again, just wondering. Over and out.

UPD? | 9:57 a.m. June 6, 2009

Sorry I didn't pay attention. I saw what it was referring to. Thank you.

Funny how "truth" changes | 10:04 a.m. June 6, 2009

So DUI checkpoints are now "roadblocks" and "evil" even though they've been demonstratoed to reduce DUI related fatalities by almost 20% when they are used and publicized! Frankly, I'm happy to give up FIVE minutes of my time if it just might help someone else not to DIE.

CHPD currently writes LESS tickets/month than the SO in Holladay.

CHPD is MUCH MUCH MUCH MUCH more of a presence than the SO ever was. Most people (the law-abiding ones, I guess) like that very much. I beleive CH only hired 2-3 more officers than were paid for under the SO contract, yet they're see so much more - why is that? (Maybe because the officers actually patrol our streets, & we don't pay excessively for services NOT rendered in the city, etc.)
Both options provide safety/security for the citizens, the CH model simply puts daily patrol/enforcement first and relies on mutual aid for major events. The SO claims the only way to survive a major event is to have ALL resources in House 24/7 - that is a major overhead cost (~$1 million/year) they pay for daily but use rarely.

Productivity of Sheriff's Office | 12:35 p.m. June 6, 2009

I agree with commentator "Funny how 'truth' changes" main point : there should be a set of data presented showing how much police work was done in the Cottonwood Heights area per dollar by their local department (CHPD) and how much was done per dollar by the Sheriffs Office (SO) - even if the SO can afford providing specialty services and local PDs cannot - to show which organization is more cost effective.

The SO could always contract these specialty services separately to the local CHPD. Or Holladay, too, for that matter. Its not like these services have to dissappear if the SO is replaced by a local PD.

Even though a larger organization can appear to leverage better use of money, it all comes down to how well the SO has responded to local needs.

Also, another crucial point is that a local government can more easily adapt its police to repond to its needs since the local PD would be accountable to the city...while the SO, not necessarily so.

A citizen making a complaint against or suggestion for a local PD would have a better chance of getting change..since a local PD would be influenced by local voting/officers.

To Funny & Produce | 5:05 p.m. June 6, 2009

Funny, check with the Holladay court and the CHPD website, CHPD has written between 300-450 tickets a month unitil last month. Holladay sheriffs do not write that many.
CHPD will never go back to the sheriffs office or UPD. Both of you know that because you work for CHPD. The Chief and mayor hates the sheriff.

The only thing I see in CH are cops pulling people over and giving them tickets. Check the CHPD website and look at their ticket stats. As for local control and "local government can more easily adapt its police to repond to its needs since the local PD would be accountable to the city"....the cops should be accountable to the citizens not the the city government. This is why CH is in shabbles right now, the cops answer only to the mayor and his wants.

Charles | 5:35 p.m. June 6, 2009

Mr. Funny:
I was stopped at the 'checkpoint' last night. I was on my way home to Sandy from work. I know DUI's are a serious menace to society but there are better ways then to harrass innocent citizen to catch 1 or 2 of these people. The sign at the start of the checkpoint said 'Road work ahead". Then I was accosted by uniformed officers demanding to see my driver license. This is wrong.

You need to find a better way to stop drunk driving without infringing on the constitutional rights of free citizens. Shame on the Cottonwood Heights Police last night.

Pros and Cons | 6:11 a.m. June 8, 2009

There are pros and cons to cities having their own police departments. The pro is the mayor has control of local police and law enforcement which is not such a big deal. Officers are not required to live in the cities they work for so personalized departments that know the city is not so magnanimous a deal. The many cons are higher taxes and excessive number of officers and patrol cars.

Then the officers have boundary problems to enforce laws on those that don't live in the city. Case in point is thefts, a thief living in another city cannot be pursued across city boundary's. Then crimes committed in one city are not crimes in every city so the thief and your goods are gone forever.

Don't know about this UDP and never heard of the proposal but hopefully it allows pursuit and investigation across city boundary's. There should be no boundary's for pursuit, investigations, arrests between cities, counties, or state. Every city should be networked to share information, make arrests, and enforce laws. Even traffic laws should be pursued between cities as all cities are under the same traffic laws and rules.

robert | 7:15 a.m. June 8, 2009

If you want incompetent officers, unable to get hired by larger more secure police departments go ahead and sign up with the cottonwood boys, they remind me of the stereotypical macho man bad cops you see on TV.
If you want to have your children unfairly treated and scared of the police by all means make this change.

I like CH Police | 7:17 a.m. June 8, 2009

Prior to the change to local police, you never saw a cop car up here. We had thieves coming up from West Valley in the night and burglarizing cars. A friend from California was parked in our drive, I interrupted the car jackers at 3:00 in the morning, they left their bag of tools, credit cards from a stolen briefcase from the car were used at the 7-ll @ 7200 and Safeways in West Valley. We called the store in West Valley, they had surveillence cameras, the deputies were told and never did a thing. Took a report, took the car jack tools, surely with fingerprints, prints were all over the car window. Did not do a thing.

I like seeing the local cops, roadblocks, fine with me, it shows we have police protection to wouldbe criminals. Holladay can do what they want, but I'm very satisfied with the visable Cottonwood Heights force.

1Observer | 8:08 a.m. June 8, 2009

Cottonwood Heights saved money and got better police protection by dumping the county and starting their own police department. Taxes have not gone up. As for the road block, most major departments, including the Highway Patrol, coordinated road blocks over the Memorial Holiday and weekends as a deterrent to DUI. AS for the UPD, I doubt that SLCPD, WVCPD, CHPD, WJPD, Midvale PD, Murray PD, SSLPD or the other larger city-run departments will ever join given that the law that just passed makes the Sheriff king of the UPD and gives the local officials little control since they can't fire the Sheriff, even if they don't like what he or she is doing. Ill-conceived power-grab destined for failure. Sometime in the future that law will change and the cities will get together and do a metro PD right. Assuming all egos can be checked.

Mike | 8:34 a.m. June 8, 2009

Let's see. Murray, Midvale, Cottonwood Heights, Draper, South Jordan, West Jordan, South Salt Lake, Salt Lake, West Valley, Salt Lake County Sheriff, Sandy, and assorted task forces (Metro Gang, DEA, etc). What's wrong with this picture? Too many police departments. All running around tripping over each other, not sharing information as well as they could nor using resources as well as they could.

There needs to be a Metro Police Department in the Salt Lake Valley. You can't tell where Salt Lake, South Salt Lake, Murray, Midvale, Sandy begin and end by driving down State Street. West Jordan, South Jordan no longer have any discernable boundries like they used too (ie, open space). Sandy, Cottonwood Heights, Draper all run together.

With over 1 million people in the valley now, it makes sense to combine. Whether or not the Metro Department is run by the Sheriff or a governing body made up of representatives of the various muncipalities, it needs to be done. It ought to be done now before the Legislature steps in and makes it manditory.

Just Cops | 9:23 a.m. June 8, 2009

It seems that most of the comments are from deputies. Most people in the valley aren't as concerned about power as the SO is. Can't we just get along?

You're next | 9:44 a.m. June 8, 2009

Cullimore will next want to annex the entire city of Holladay into his fiefdom, which includes Canyons School District, which is going to need to grab something to give it enough money to pay the outlandish salaries it has give to district administrators.

Metro Police | 9:56 a.m. June 8, 2009

Make law to have the citizens of Salt Lake County elect a Police Commissioner. Divide the valley up into districts and have district chiefs. Have representives from each city on a board (use City or area population to decide how many representives each has). The elected Commissioner would answer to the voters.

Easy to do if we get rid of all the politics. (Mayors and Council).

It's up to the Citizens of Salt Lake County.

Just say NO | 10:10 a.m. June 8, 2009

I live in Holladay, but travel through Cottonwood Heightson a regular basis. I see CH police everywhere when I am there (Always with someone pulled over)and no I have not been one of CHPD's offenders.
I say NO to joining CHPD. Local Control is a Myth with CHPD proposal. The final say will still be in CH control. Where as Holladay residents we have no say on voting for Mayor who can in turn Hire/Fire Police Chief.
At least with the County we can vote Winder out if we don't like him..

Local is Better | 10:26 a.m. June 8, 2009

Draper City chose to create its own police department and the impact has been most positive. I want to be clear it was not an issue of the deputy's from the Sheriff's department not performing. They are great people and true professionals. It was simply the fact that given the limited resources they were not able to provide a high level of service. It is a welcome sight, to have Draper police cars patroling neighborhoods 24 hours a day. I understand that there is an effort being taken by local police departments to form a Polic Alliance. This Alliance provides for local control but also provides for the sharing of expensive resources and training. In this instance, local control has proven to be better.

What's the point | 10:32 a.m. June 8, 2009

in having individual cities if each of the cities aren't going to provide tailored services to their respective residents?

If we are going to "metro" all of our services (UPD, UFD, courts, parks, schools, etc) we might just as well go all the way and opt for metro government.

ex cop | 10:49 a.m. June 8, 2009

It is not true that the Sheriffs office delivers a superior product than local police.

It is also not true that it is worse.

The bottom line is what the people feel they need right now. Do the deputies assigned to the area always stay there? No they dont. If an officer in as area miles away needs assistance, the assigned deputy will leave. Just a fact.

Another good argument would be West Valley. They chose to form their own police dpt. At the time there were two and sometimes three deputies assigned to the area. The argumrent of juvenile, narcotics and regular detectives assigned dosent work. They are in an office far far away and not available for quick response. Where would West Valley be today without their own police?

The Sheriffs office is an excellent law enforcement agency. THey just are not always the best choice. This seems to be one of those times.

Retired Cop / Deputy | 12:32 p.m. June 8, 2009

Ex-cop makes a good point with regard to WVC Police. Remember WVC police started, they were viewed as heavy handed thugs. It took that start up police dept. 20 years to get to what theyh have today, a professional dept with high capabilities. CHPD is a start up dept, that may take 10-20 years to become proffessionals.

Ex cops second comment "The bottom line is what the people feel they need right now." The citizens love their services from the Sheriff's Office. That is the Bottom Line.

Ian | 4:15 p.m. June 8, 2009

As a homeowner in Holladay, I am concerned about the change in our police services right now. As I watch the City between the canyons spread its wings, it concerns me they want to spread them into Holladay. Holladay is an eastside village that is special, private and exclusive. Cottonwood Heights believes in growth, traffic, high rise buildings and forced government. Holladay is different. Our City needs to stay special and avoid Cottonwood Heights who's style and norms are contrary to ours.

Travis | 5:30 p.m. June 8, 2009

1Observer needs to read the Cottonwood Journal Page 4. Our taxes are going up next year and services going down. Stop being one of kelvins sheep and demand the answers before you re-elect him. His company is in the garbage (50 cents a share down from alot). He is running the city like his business. You want see an 'ill-conceived power grab', look at what CH police is trying to do with Holladay. That is exactly what it is.

Recently Retired | 12:02 p.m. June 9, 2009

Many of the comments here seem to center around "heavy handed officers". I was a Police Officer here in Utah for 21 years. I worked for the largest municipal department in our county for most of that time. I specialized in training new Officers to become quality officers. I found some interesting things during this time.

First, some people become Officers because they want the preceived "Power" that goes along with it. Thanksfully, these types are short lived. Their own actions weed them out most of the time.

Second, most Officers have a real desire to make a positive impact in their communities. These people want to SERVE and PROTECT. They do their best every day to improve their area.

Finally, some Officers, myself included, move to smaller "start up" or struggling Departments because they believe they can help shape the Department and make it better. The problem is, if they are quality Officers, they are use to working hard and keeping busy. New or struggling Departments don't have the work load these officers are use to so they engage the public. I stopped dozens of people every day but that doesn't mean I cited them.

Heidi | 4:48 p.m. June 9, 2009

I think Russo and Mayor Cullimore are pathetic and I know Capt. Chris Bertrum is an amazing person and I can say he is honest, which I cannot say for the other two clowns

Two faced | 8:46 a.m. June 11, 2009

Russo and Cullimore continue to say whatever they think gullible people will listen to at any moment- then say something completly different to another group.

They say with local contol you can keep your own officers in your own city. Then they say if there is an emergency we can count on other agencies to come help us. Hello! Do not those same other cities expect you to come help them?

Russo and Cullimore spout off about how many more tickets and DUI's they have written since the Sheriff left. Then, when citizens complain, they claim they are not writing that many tickets. Councilman Bruce Jones even put an article saying they dont write many in the Valley Journal. This pair is so two-faced it is ridiculous.

They say the biggest comment they hear is that people see their cars everywhere. Of course, they fail to mention that it's Midvale residents telling them that.

Cottonwood Heights has several fine officers. They just lack competent leadership at every level.

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