Hayden considers doubling down on deputies

HAYDEN — Residents will have another chance to pay for additional policing if the City Council approves adding the measure to the November ballot.

After voters sunk a proposal to add more deputies to Hayden streets as part of a $1.6 million proposal last November that also would have paid for street upgrades, the City Council formed a citizen task force to investigate whether more deputies were warranted.

This spring, the task force proposed adding four deputies to Hayden. That would double the number of deputies dedicated to policing the city and allow it to provide 24-hour coverage.

The city pays $285,000 annually to the Kootenai County Sheriff’s Office for the four deputies, though one of the deputies during the academic year doubles as a school-resource officer.

“Those officers should primarily spend time in the city of Hayden,” city administrator Brett Boyer said.

Adding officers would lower the response time from nine minutes to around three minutes, and more officers would allow for more community-based policing, a strategy that calls for law enforcement to be more involved and become more familiar with neighborhoods, people and the community, through proactive policing.

“It creates a little bit of trust,” Boyer said. “It’s not like there’s rampant crime.”

Task Force members who looked at two groups of crime statistics over a period of seven years saw a decrease in so-called “Level One” crimes, which include burglary, theft, rape and assault. Level Two crimes, which include drugs and drunk-driving offenses, increased slightly.

The overall recommendation was to add four deputies to an urban population that is rapidly growing.

“They wanted to keep the level of safety where we are,” Boyer said. “If we don’t add officers we could see a negative trend in the crime rate.”

Capt. Matt Street, the sheriff’s office liaison to the task force, said his department’s figures showed that deputies who were not in the city responded to a third of the 6,782 calls for service last year.

“The majority of the calls responded to were by a deputy who is not typically in Hayden and doesn’t necessarily know the people like the Hayden deputies do,” Street said.

Crime statistics for the city show no drastic increases or decreases, councilmember Matt Roetter said. He floated the idea of adding two deputies as opposed to four and revisiting local crime statistics each year.

“If the trend goes down, then we don’t need to add the other two, and we’re saving taxpayers’ money,” Roetter said.

Hayden crime rates between 2012 and 2018 show an increase in aggravated assault from nine in 2012 to 14 cases in 2018. Auto burglaries went down from 78 in 2012 to 38 last year. Residential burglaries dropped from 72 to 12, and theft dropped from 340 cases seven years ago to 226 last year, according to the data.

Vandalism cases dropped from 118 to 53. Weapon offenses, though cyclical over the years, went from five cases in 2012 to two last year.

The number of DUI and drug cases over seven years showed the most striking change. DUI cases increased from 74 to 96 and drug cases increased from 153 to 255.

Of the $1.6 million increase brought before voters at last year’s election, some $630,000 would have been used for adding deputies.

The City Council is expected to consider the proposal to double the number of deputies at its meeting July 9.