Deer Park reaching out to others for police service
Even as Deer Park ponders whether to continue its contract for police service from Kildeer, it is reaching out to other agencies for potential future service while Kildeer is mulling the reduction of its own department a switch would entail.
Officials from Palatine, Lake Zurich and Barrington confirmed receiving inquiries from Deer Park about the possibility of establishing a three-year contract for police service as soon as the late fall.
Representatives from the Lake County Sheriff's Office, which formerly served Deer Park, declined to comment.
Meanwhile, eight of Kildeer's 14 full-time patrol officers received 30-day layoff notices during the summer which have since been rescinded.
Though layoffs are not technically pending, the earlier notices give some indication of how much Kildeer is considering reducing the force if the Deer Park contract is not renewed, the police union's field representative Joe Kalita said.
While the union has experienced layoffs in other departments, a layoff of more than 50 percent is unprecedented, Kalita added.
“It's just a real frustrating time for our members, because they're on that string,” Kalita said.
Kildeer Village Administrator Michael Talbett confirmed that layoff notices were given during the summer but are no longer in effect. However, he added that the possibility of having to send new notices at any time exists based on the timing of Deer Park's decision.
The current contract between the two villages expires on April 30, 2013, but a potential exists of terminating the contract earlier than that, and seems to be one of the possibilities Deer Park is considering, Talbett said.
Neither side would comment on what Deer Park's specific concerns are regarding the service it's been receiving from Kildeer. But Deer Park officials did say that these concerns are not based on any particular incident or purely financial in nature.
Deer Park is in the fourth year of its second contract with Kildeer and will pay about $1.45 million for police service this year. The contract calls for 24-hour-a-day coverage.
Deer Park was policed by the Lake County Sheriff's Office until about the time the Deer Park Town Center on Rand Road opened more than a decade ago. At that time, village officials began looking for an agency whose home base was closer and settled on Kildeer.
Lake Zurich Police Chief Patrick Finlon said his village responded to Deer Park's recent inquiry by saying it would be willing to discuss the matter further as long as a contract was mutually beneficial. Deer Park has not yet replied, he said.
Finlon said his department built its current station in 2002 with the possibility in mind of serving more than just Lake Zurich. But that's not a guarantee that any proposal for consolidation would be in Lake Zurich's best interest, he added.
“There are some very significant advantages to consolidation,” Finlon said.
Palatine and Barrington declined Deer Park's request.
Palatine Village Manager Reid Ottesen received the request from Deer Park on Aug. 18 with a Sept. 15 deadline for a response regarding a three-year contract that would begin on Dec. 1.
“It would be physically impossible,” Ottesen said of the request. “It was an unrealistic time frame.”
Among the issues for Palatine were that it would require prosecutions at the Lake County courthouse in Waukegan, whereas now all the department's cases go to the Cook County courthouse in Rolling Meadows. And even if such changes to the department could be made, they would require a longer time frame than just a three-year contract to be worthwhile, Ottesen said.
Barrington is gun-shy after Inverness terminated its 33-year contract for service in order to establish its own department in 2009.
Village Manager Jeff Lawler, who was police chief at the time, said it's a painful process to lose a contract. After going through the grueling process of laying off officers and restructuring the department, Barrington is less inclined to start that kind of a relationship again, he said.