Sheriff to discuss service in Spirit Lake on Wednesday
Undersheriff Brett Nelson attends a Spirit Lake city council meeting July 11. The Kootenai County Sheriff's Office will meet with the council again at 9 a.m. Wednesday, possibly to discuss a contract for service.
JOSA SNOW/Press
COEUR d'ALENE — Sheriff Bob Norris, accompanied by a lawyer, will attend a Spirit Lake special City Council meeting at 9 a.m. Wednesday to discuss options for county law enforcement services in the city. The meeting will be held at Spirit Lake City Hall, 6042 W. Maine St.
The attorney will be there to guide the legal aspects of the process and to ensure early drafts of a contract between the city and sheriff's office would need minimal revisions, allowing the sheriff’s office to step in as soon as possible or necessary.
“There is an immediate need there, so we’ll see if we can get something done quicker,” Norris said.
The sheriff intends to use the meeting to discuss the conceptual wants and needs of council members.
“I want to see our police department back,” Councilman Gary Ventress said during a July 11 meeting. “But we need something right now, not tomorrow. Now.”
In the last city council meeting, council members asked to be more involved in the process of hiring the sheriff’s office as soon as possible. Council members needed to reassure residents of safety and security in their city.
Spirit Lake has one police officer on staff with an unsupervised police station due to staffing shortages. An agreement between the KCSO and Spirit Lake would supplement the staffing shortages until the vacant positions can be filled and people can be fully trained.
The sheriff’s office was in negotiations with Spirit Lake Mayor Jeremy Cowperthwaite to send deputies to the region as early as November 2022, the sheriff said. The mayor told Undersheriff Brett Nelson at that time that the city would not pursue services, Nelson said. In November the Spirit Lake Police Department still had a chief of police and had just lost two officers.
“This is something city council has been pushed away from,” Ventress said last week, before accusing Mayor Cowperthwaite of misrepresenting his negotiations with the sheriff’s office this year.
A contract with the sheriff’s office could assign a deputy and vehicle to Spirit Lake for a contracted amount of hours, Norris said.
The special meeting does not have any action items on the agenda so it will likely only be a discussion with any possible action taken at future council meetings.