RSS Feed
|
|
|||||||||||||||||||||||||||||||
|
Sheriff determined to have new patrol vehicles
Moore spoke Monday to a meeting of the Barlow Bend Community Action League at Union Chapel Baptist Church. The sheriff was asked if there were enough vehicles in the fleet to patrol District 4. He said no. "Our cars, except for three, have got over 200,000 miles. The law says, once you get 170,000 miles on it, you ought to park it. It's unsafe. "…We need at least 10 deputies," Moore said. "Today we had one deputy out. One of them has sick family in Mobile. Some of them are in school. "The commissioners try sometimes, "but most of the time, I don't get much help….(The county commission) said they are going to give me one car this time. I told them…I'm going to take all of these with 170,000 miles, and I'm going to park them at the courthouse. Then I'm going to get on the phone and order me four new patrol cars. You might not want to pay for them, but you're going to pay for them….I left it just like that." Residents at the Barlow Bend meeting said the public should get in contact with their county commissioners about the need for new vehicles. "It's really hard to get a patrol car," Moore said. "You've got to go through an act of Congress." Annie Deloise Morris, county administrator, said Tuesday that Sheriff Moore asked for $120,000 in the fiscal 2008 budget for four new vehicles. In the rough draft budget that Morris presented to the county commission last week, approximately $43,000 is allotted for two vehicles. The commission is expected to meet Sept. 20 to work on the budget, but Morris said the county does not have enough money to buy additional vehicles. Morris had to remove an expected $500,000 in tax revenue for 2008 because of the current dispute with the Boise Cascade mill. Sheriff Moore told the gathering in Barlow Bend that his department is dealing with a large number of calls, he said. "We had 33 calls (Sunday). That's quite a few calls." According to data from E- 911, the sheriff's department received approximately 969 calls in August. In regard to District 4, "this district down here is in bad need for help," Sheriff Moore said. "We're in bad shape for shelters in case of storms. Officers with the sheriff's department "try our best to get down here ever so often as we can….I'll help anyone down here if I can. All you have to do is call." Moore was asked about a remote deputy station for District 4. The sheriff said he had proposed that to the commission, and said "I told them we would man it on the weekend. That's when most of our problems are. I never heard anything from it. I asked them twice." One idea was to house a sheriff sub-station inside a volunteer fire department building.
There are approximately 200 inmates in the county jail, Moore said. "When I took office, we had 77. I don't want to lock everybody up, but with those breaking the law, I'm going to have to do it."
|
for larger version       |
||||||||||||||||||||||||||||||
)
