Snohomish may have third option for policing

Published 2:38 pm Wednesday, July 13, 2011

The city of Snohomish has a lot to consider when it comes to deciding whether to contract for police services.

It may be about to get more complicated.

Monroe city and police leaders have offered to explore developing their own contract proposal for police services in Snohomish. Their offer was politely declined, back when Snohomish was leaning toward keeping its own cop shop.

Snohomish City Manager Larry Bauman is expected to talk with Monroe Police Chief Tim Quenzer about the idea sometime this week or soon.

It seems that Monroe is still interested, but it isn’t clear if they’ll be submitting a proposal.

Snohomish didn’t want to ask Monroe to go through the trouble of creating a cost-data proposal if Snohomish wasn’t serious about a police contract, Bauman said.

The city would want to see a proposal they could use for an apples-to-apples comparison with their current police services and the services that have been offered by the Snohomish County Sheriff’s Office. Developing such a proposal could take a “fairly substantial amount of labor,” Bauman said.

City leaders are expected to meet at 6 p.m. Tuesday for a pre-council workshop to discuss their options. They’ve invited representatives from the sheriff’s office to attend, Bauman said.

Snohomish has completed a comparison table for existing services and sheriff’s proposed services, he said.

No action is expected at the Tuesday workshop.

Materials for the workshop and the subsequent City Council meeting should go up on the city’s website on Friday afternoon.