Hainesville mayor hopefuls clash over police department

The clearest difference between the two candidates for Hainesville mayor are their views of the village's police department and how it came to be.

Mayor Ted Mueller is happy with the small force just over 1 year old and says the village had no real choice than to establish its own department.

Linda Soto, who Mueller replaced in 2001 and wants the job back, is cautious in her appraisal of the move to create a department and believes the village rushed into things.

The police force was created in January 2008 after the former Round Lake Park/Hainesville police department dissolved in a sea of acrimony and lawsuits. The Hainesville department has five full-time employees and six part-timers.

The Round Lake Park/Hainesville agreement came apart when Round Lake Park decided its smaller partner should have increase its monthly payment for police service from $28,000 to $44,000 for several years prior.

Mueller says Hainesville was on the hook for more than $400,000, and Round Lake Park sued in an eventually successful attempt to collect it and end the partnership.

"Unfortunately, the agreement did call for annual reviews of what we were paying, and Round Lake Park never did it," Mueller said. "I was called to a meeting one day with their mayor and the police chief and was told we owed them $400,000."

Soto counters that Mueller and the village board ignored a clause in the contract that would have forced Round Lake Park to continue policing Hainesville for another 18 months while the village studied alternatives.

"We could have approached the Lake County sheriff's office, and Grayslake officials were interested in making a proposal for police services," Soto said. "It appears instead that the mayor and the board just decided to strike out on their own with very little contemplation."

Even the cost of the new department is in dispute between the two candidates.

Mueller claims the department will operate within its $600,000 budget for this year, while Soto insists spending will exceed $850,000 for the year.

The department operates out of the former village public works facility, which Soto claims is another example of shortsighted thinking that went into the department's creation.

Putting the police department in that building meant moving public works equipment to a rented storage facility, she said, an expense to the village she said was unnecessary.

Mueller counters that the move is temporary and that plans are being considered to expand the current home of the police department to include public works, or to find public works another permanent home.

Soto does not say directly that she would favor dissolving the department and go back to contracting for police services, but stressed more study must be put into further decisions.

"Ideally, the best situation would be to have our own police department," she said. "Having said that, we now have to answer the question of what we can afford and what level of public safety does it buy us."

Mueller remains an enthusiastic supporter of the hometown team.

"The Hainesville Police Department has been an outstanding success," he said. "My intentions are to keep it and continue to operate it out of our village hall."