BOCC, SCSO move forward on St. Joe field residence

WALLACE — The Shoshone County Sheriff’s Office is one step closer to ensuring what they claim will be, a more cost-effective way to have a police presence in the St. Joe region of Shoshone County.

The Shoshone County Board of County Commissioners authorized Sheriff Mike Gunderson on Tuesday to “work through the logistics” and “negotiate a purchase” of a trailer that will be used as a sheriff’s office field residence/office in Calder.

The county commissioners and sheriff’s office began exploring this idea on Oct. 24 in effort to reduce the cost of enforcement in the area and provide better service.

In the event of a call for service in the St. Joe region of the county, deputies must currently drive over an hour and a half through Rose Lake and St. Maries to get there.

Gunderson believes that this is not only tough on response times, but it also costs a significant amount of money.

The leading idea of what the residence would be is a trailer, purchased by the county, and set up on county land near “the shop” in Calder.

This trailer would then be manned by a deputy on a three day rotation.

He or she would not be stationed there full-time.

Presence would increase though around certain points of the year when calls for service in the area go up.

Although an official amount of money to invest into the project has not been decided, Commissioner Mike Fitzgerald estimated that it would be in the $20,000 to $30,000 range.

The final total dollar amount — which would included the price of the trailer and other living costs associated with it — would be split 50/50 between the county and Sheriff’s Office budgets.