No more Pontiac Police Department

**GrandCircus289** · October-13-10, 11:37 AM

http://detnews.com/article/20101013/...ice-department

Pending a contract signing, as early as December, Oakland County Sheriff will take over.

**luckycar** · October-13-10, 12:31 PM

DEA,State Police,FBI,OCSD have been in Pontiac for a while.Not much will change.If the OCSD can do it cheaper with the same officers,so be it.

Bearinabox · October-13-10, 02:31 PM

I dunno, this would kind of scare me if I lived in Pontiac. Does the Oakland County Sheriff have the resources to adequately serve a city that size? Wasn't Royal Oak Township having issues with the sheriff's emergency response?

**Hypestyles** · October-13-10, 02:47 PM

perhaps in Detroit there needs to be some type of shared service agreement with Detroit and the Wayne County Sheriff's department, as well as the Michigan state troopers.. i wrote to Evans about this after he was first appointed by Bing..

**jt1** · October-13-10, 03:25 PM

Originally Posted by Hypestyles

perhaps in Detroit there needs to be some type of shared service agreement with Detroit and the Wayne County Sheriff's department, as well as the Michigan state troopers.. i wrote to Evans about this after he was first appointed by Bing..

I believe that Wayne County does work collaboratively with DPD. I don't believe that they do day to day policing but are involved in drug and gang squads, etc.

**Det_ard** · October-13-10, 08:23 PM

Originally Posted by Bearinabox

I dunno, this would kind of scare me if I lived in Pontiac. Does the Oakland County Sheriff have the resources to adequately serve a city that size? Wasn't Royal Oak Township having issues with the sheriff's emergency response?

Pontiac currently doesn't have the resources to adequately serve the city. Response time and no response to 911 calls are a problem there now, just like in Detroit. While I don't think the OC Sheriff will do much better, service is already bad. And it will help Pontiac save some money which they are in desperate need of.

**Cincinnati_Kid** · October-14-10, 02:38 AM

This state is going to the _hitter faster than I ever imagined.

**BagAJellyDonuts** · October-14-10, 05:56 AM

Why not do it? Still going to use most the current resources. Will just hire current officers that can and will pass drug and background tests.

**Lowell** · October-14-10, 06:26 AM

I have long been an advocate of metropolitan union at least with consolidation of public safety. I fail to see the value of every little town have its own police and fire chief and duplicative bureaucratic staffs. It is a huge waste that leads to cops busting kids for smoking pot on one part of metro while thousands of warrants and violent offenses go unserved and uninvestigated in another part.

Public safety needs to be pooled and the forces sent into combat where the the real enemies are. Maybe the economic crisis will bring this on. Highland Park had Wayne County Sheriffs for quite a while during its ongoing bankruptcy and nobody missed the local yokels. Why they went back to local policing is a mystery.

**luckycar** · October-14-10, 08:07 AM

A countywide police and fire dept. could save money in equipment purchases,dispatching,patrolling,crime lab,undercover and more that I'm missing.All the small thiefdoms that we live in should see a cash savings,if the thieves will play along.

Stosh · October-14-10, 08:30 AM

Originally Posted by Lowell

I have long been an advocate of metropolitan union at least with consolidation of public safety. I fail to see the value of every little town have its own police and fire chief and duplicative bureaucratic staffs. It is a huge waste that leads to cops busting kids for smoking pot on one part of metro while thousands of warrants and violent offenses go unserved and uninvestigated in another part.

Public safety needs to be pooled and the forces sent into combat where the the real enemies are. Maybe the economic crisis will bring this on. Highland Park had Wayne County Sheriffs for quite a while during its ongoing bankruptcy and nobody missed the local yokels. Why they went back to local policing is a mystery.

I don't see why you don't see the value in smaller departments being more effective in deterring crime. It's that effectiveness that allows the cops to be able to bust kids for pot. Granted, that there may be a little bit of waste involved within these departments, but overall, it's well worth it.

Pooling public safety with who is the question I would ask. If you are speaking of DPD, then that's just throwing the baby out with the bathwater. Or even Wayne county or Oakland county sherriffs. You just don't get the level of service that a local department gives you.

gdogslim · October-14-10, 09:10 AM

re: No more Pontiac Police Department
It isn't final yet.

But now i know where to set up my future Pot Farm. Then I will retire shortly thereafter.
edit----V
Speaking of Pot Farms, If Detroit were to allow pot farming and then tax the sale, could this bring Detroit from the bottom to the top in terms of per capita income?

**jackie5275** · October-14-10, 09:14 AM

Originally Posted by Lowell

Highland Park had Wayne County Sheriffs for quite a while during its ongoing bankruptcy and nobody missed the local yokels. Why they went back to local policing is a mystery.

Midway through the contract period Highland Park abruptly stopped paying the Wayne County Sheriff's Office. WCSO couldn't afford to continue that service without the payments, so Evans decided to pull out. Mystery solved.

**rhythmc** · October-14-10, 09:49 AM

Originally Posted by Lowell

I have long been an advocate of metropolitan union at least with consolidation of public safety. I fail to see the value of every little town have its own police and fire chief and duplicative bureaucratic staffs. It is a huge waste that leads to cops busting kids for smoking pot on one part of metro while thousands of warrants and violent offenses go unserved and uninvestigated in another part.

Public safety needs to be pooled and the forces sent into combat where the the real enemies are. Maybe the economic crisis will bring this on. Highland Park had Wayne County Sheriffs for quite a while during its ongoing bankruptcy and nobody missed the local yokels. Why they went back to local policing is a mystery.

I also find that every city, town, etc. having it's own police/fire/EMS to be the biggest waste of money. I also don't see the value of public school districts being established at the city level. There is no reason why a small city [[10,000 people) should be considered a school district right beside a city of 800,000 people. Many of these functions can be handled effectively at the county level. I believe the current economic environment will demonstrate to people just how wasteful many of these current structures are.

**mtburb** · October-14-10, 01:45 PM

What's next, state police having exclusive patrol of Oakland County?

**unclefrank** · October-14-10, 01:56 PM

Should have done this long ago. Alot of other cities need to be next.

**douglasm** · October-14-10, 02:59 PM

In the little town that I'm a councilman in, we've contracted with the Sheriff's Department for police services. For us it's worked, but we only have about a thousand residents.

Although Pontiac is the biggest city I've ever heard of this happening in, what normally happens is that the local police officers end up entering the Sheriff's Department and are assigned to a detachment in the city. The Pontiac proposal calls for 74 officers, the same size as the current police force.

The advantage is that you gain the resources of a larger department. In our case, there would be no way our little department would have had the resources to handle a major crime, or the manpower to overcome a major problem. The sheriff's office can call on its greater manpower or recourses if necessary. From Pontiac's standpoint, they retain a police presense without the overlying administrative costs.

The downside? You lose control of your police department, but overall I think it's a good move.

**Hermod** · October-14-10, 04:51 PM

Originally Posted by rhythmc

I also find that every city, town, etc. having it's own police/fire/EMS to be the biggest waste of money. I also don't see the value of public school districts being established at the city level. There is no reason why a small city [[10,000 people) should be considered a school district right beside a city of 800,000 people. Many of these functions can be handled effectively at the county level. I believe the current economic environment will demonstrate to people just how wasteful many of these current structures are.

As I have posted before, once you get out of the major cities in the state of Michigan, the school districts and the city/township boundaries do not necessarily coincide. The independent school districts are their own political entities and are not under the oversight of the local city/village/township.

School districts came together geographically rather than by population growth, so two districts may each cover a similar geographic area, but differ wildly in school population.

While there has been some consolidation, the core of each district was once a one or two room country school.

**mtburb** · October-14-10, 06:01 PM

Remember that the same thing has happened with Highland Park before? When the city was bankrupt it could not acommidate a police force so that disbanded and the Wayne County Sherriff patroled HP exclusively. But a few years later the city recorvered and it again had it's own police force.

**maxx** · December-16-10, 02:29 PM

http://www.freep.com/article/2010121...Pontiac-police

**detroitbob66** · December-17-10, 01:44 AM

WOW! VERY SCARY!

**Al Publican** · December-17-10, 02:01 AM

...I support the idea of county-wide police and fire agencies. Consolidate small town public safety depts and go county wide. Even in large urban areas it seems to make sense budget management wise. LA County is covered largely by the Los Angeles Fire Dept.

Metro Detroit towns like Pontiac, Roseville, and Hamtramck, to name a few, don't need city PDs and FDs.

**bibs** · December-18-10, 12:26 AM

I recently moved out of state for work and I'm now a county employee. What I have learned is that power, control and ego is what is in the minds of government employees. They litterally compete against each other for power. Serving the tax payer is in the top five but power and control are number one baby. That's why they HANGING ON and refuse to do what is best for the people, most cost effective and efficient. Same goes for Federal Agencies like the FBI not cooperating with the CIA and vice versa. They have no external competition the forces them to work as a team and be competitive so they compete against each other.

**One Shot** · December-18-10, 09:08 AM

Speaking of Pot Farms, If Detroit were to allow pot farming and then tax the sale, could this bring Detroit from the bottom to the top in terms of per capita income?[/QUOTE]

Ya...Just like that Robocop movie.

**Wesley Mouch** · December-18-10, 12:11 PM

Originally Posted by bibs

I recently moved out of state for work and I'm now a county employee. What I have learned is that power, control and ego is what is in the minds of government employees. They litterally compete against each other for power. Serving the tax payer is in the top five but power and control are number one baby. That's why they HANGING ON and refuse to do what is best for the people, most cost effective and efficient. Same goes for Federal Agencies like the FBI not cooperating with the CIA and vice versa. They have no external competition the forces them to work as a team and be competitive so they compete against each other.

Never said better.

But also be careful of centralization. When there's no diversity [[not racial, but of procedures and control) then inefficiencies develop. We need diversity but also centralization of best practices. Balance.