Smelterville City Council exploring options to increase police presence

Smelterville mayor Tom Benson, as well as the Smelterville City Council, are currently looking into a way to beef up the presence of law enforcement within their community.

Benson and the council members met with Shoshone County Sheriff Mike Gunderson last week to discuss Gunderson’s proposal to get more patrolling done within the town.

“I want to provide as many hours as we can, Smelterville obviously has a reputation which has caused concerns from some of its residents and we want to get it cleaned up as quickly as possible. I want to make sure it has that happy home feeling again,” Gunderson said. “We want to get rid of the people who are residing here who refuse to change their ways and we can do that with more patrols, that may even help with future crime prevention and if people are seeing us on the streets more frequently they are less likely to break the law.”

Gunderson’s plan would cost the city a total of $2,850 a month ($1,850 more than what they are currently paying) and would guarantee an additional 80 hours of patrol time within the city.

“Last month we had like 90 hours in the city that was us responding to calls,” Gunderson said. “Since January we have increased patrols here in the city, but this would give Smelterville some dedicated hours.”

Benson was frank when discussing why he wants to get more coverage in his community.

“We’re going to be asking quite a bit from the Sheriff’s department to help get the city cleaned up,” Benson said. “I have seen more patrols out here since January, but I know you are spending a lot of time at those apartments (Silver Leaf Apartments) and Walmart.”

Gunderson ran down a list of things that he has dealt with in the town over the past few months, calls involving several narcotics cases, a rape, a stabbing, and some stolen vehicles.

One of the major issues that is standing in the way of getting the deal done is that Smelterville is in the middle of a very tight budget year and the extra $1,850 a month throws their tight budget off.

“We’re right in the middle of a budget year, and this is going to throw our budget off, but if we want to attack these issues and blights we have to spend money to get these things done,” Benson said to council members. “Everyone sitting at this table knows that (in the case of the blight ordinances) sending them letters doesn’t work, so this other approach will have deputies show up and deliver the notice.”

Those ‘blights’ that Benson mentioned are from county and city blight ordinances that define, prohibit, and abate housing blights in order to protect, preserve, and promote public health, safety, and welfares, and to preserve and protect property values.

In short, this means that property owners must maintain their property, including yards, house exterior, vehicles, etc.

The current way of informing someone that they are out of compliance with the ordinance is by mailing them a letter, which according to Benson, normally is ignored.

According to the council, blight violations are a growing issue.

Councilman Dennis Fratheim played devil’s advocate for the process and pointed out that the limited budget makes this issue more difficult to resolve, but he did acknowledge that he agrees that it is a good deal that Sheriff Gunderson had made.

“How much room do we actually have in the budget to do this?” Fratheim asked the council. “We can’t make this decision today, that’s a chunk of money for us and we need to review the budget.”

Speaking to Sheriff Gunderson, Fratheim said, “I appreciate what you’re going to do and what you’re doing, but our bottom line is just holding and has been for the last few years and now we are having sewer line issues. This is a good deal, I just don’t know that we have the room for it.”

Benson agreed with Fratheim’s assessment and made the decision to review the budget and come back with the dollar amount that the city can afford.

“We need to figure out what we can afford and then come back to you with that number and see what that gets us,” Benson told Gunderson.

The topic of how the SCSO handled the absorption of the Pinehurst Police Department was also discussed and explained to the council.

“Unlike Pinehurst Police Department, who is now under the authority of the Shoshone County Sheriff’s Office, the option to put a deputy solely dedicated to Smelterville is not possible due to the high dollar amount it would take just to get the process going,” Gunderson said.

Beside the salary amount (around $50,000 a year) it is also $10,000 just get the city the proper licensing and computer technology to begin and also the necessity of having a reliable vehicle.

“Pinehurst was easy because they were already set up with the technology, the vehicles, and basically everything. All we had to do was figure out the wages,” Gunderson said.

Whatever number the city comes back with will then have to be taken to the Shoshone Board of County Commissioners for approval, but the Smelterville City Council will be reviewing their budget over the next few weeks to hopefully get a plan in place.