Grayslake police to cover Hainesville 6 more years
Grayslake trustees have approved their end of a deal to provide police coverage for a neighboring town until August 2021.
Village board members Tuesday night voted in favor of a six-year contract extension to provide police officers and emergency dispatching services to Hainesville. Grayslake police were hired to take over after the Hainesville department was closed due to cost concerns in 2010.
Grayslake Mayor Rhett Taylor said the contract extension, which starts next year, demonstrates the strong connection his village has to Hainesville. Not only are the villages neighbors, he said, but some Hainesville residents also are within the boundaries of Grayslake's schools and park system.
Taylor credited Grayslake Police Chief Phillip Perlini and his predecessor, Larry Herzog, with seamlessly meshing the patrol of their town with Hainesville.
“If our neighbors are safer, Grayslake is safer,” Taylor said Wednesday.
Grayslake is required to provide one officer for each shift to Hainesville. The coverage is structured as an added fifth beat for Grayslake police officers, similar to having a bigger town to cover.
Hainesville village board members, at recent meeting, approved the Grayslake police contract extension. Hainesville Trustee Gerry Daley said during the meeting that negotiations resulted in his town receiving a price freeze of $843,787 for officers and dispatching in 2015-16 and 2016-17.
Daley said Hainesville also worked to keep down annual price increases in the deal's final four years. Documents show Hainesville's tab will reach $928,328 for the police package in the sixth year of the contract that expires Aug. 1, 2021.
Hainesville Mayor Linda Soto said the six-year extension will allow either side to get out of the deal. Soto said she hopes Grayslake “would never want to look at exercising” the provision.
Citing cost concerns, Hainesville trustees voted to eliminate the village's 2-year-old police force in 2010 and contracted with Grayslake after receiving bids from three law-enforcement agencies. Police cars now bear the names of both Grayslake and Hainesville.
Round Lake Park policed Hainesville from 1999 to 2008, but a money dispute ended the relationship.