Copyright 2006 Times - Standard
By JESSIE FAULKNER
The Times-Standard
BLUE LAKE, Calif. — A staff of two cops facing oodles of night-loving criminals is making the battle of good vs. evil a little more difficult here.
Police Chief Dave Gundersen told the City Council Tuesday that the department’s officers have also had the added insult of encountering several criminals or would-be criminals who aren’t willingly taken into custody.
“People are getting nastier and they’re challenging officers to fight,” Gundersen said.
Most of these late night misdeeds involve residential and vehicle burglaries. The alleged criminals, very rarely Blue Lake residents, tend to walk through town, jiggling handles to see just who forgot to lock their car doors, Gundersen said.
When they hit the jackpot, they tend to go for the change most people are tossing in the ashtray, leaving behind cameras, computers and other more costly loot, the police chief said.
The increasing frequency of the red-handed suspects challenging officers is a little dicey. Gundersen said such resistance not only comes during the process of an arrest, but reflects a general contempt for cops.
“The biggest thing we have going for us is a command presence,” he said.
That and quick back-up support via a mutual aid agreement with the Humboldt County Sheriff’s Office and the California Highway Patrol.
The police chief is quick to point out that Blue Lake is full of really nice people and that the vast majority of these encounters are with folks from other areas. He said one of his current projects is to determine the origins of these ne’er do wells -- something he plans to share with the council in the future.
The hippo-in-the-living-room question is what brings potential criminals to town. Blue Lake resident Abraxas Layton shared a geography research paper with the City Council Tuesday that points to a data-supported relation between the city’s rising crime and Blue Lake Casino’s presence just over the city line. Layton cites Blue Lake Police Department statistics and questions why the Blue Lake Rancheria, the casino’s governing body, does not financially support the nearby city’s police department.
Blue Lake Rancheria spokesperson Jana Ganion said the Rancheria abides by the memorandum of understanding with the city of Blue Lake which, in part, specifically addresses the process of adjusting tribal contributions to mitigate any casino-related impacts on the city. The Rancheria began contributing $3,000 per year to the city to handle any unforeseen problems when it opened four years ago. The MOU also includes language to revise that amount based on the city’s police department. In addition, the Rancheria pays the police department $500 per year to patrol and respond to emergencies on its tribal land.
Rancheria representatives met with city officials within the past two months and are now to quantify and interpret law enforcement data for their review, Ganion said. Once the information is in hand, the Rancheria will consider alternatives to assist with the problem. Blue Lake City Manager Wiley Buck said Thursday city staff are working on those figures.
Ganion stressed that the Rancheria has worked closely with area law enforcement in resolving criminal issues. A tip provided by a casino cashier, for example, led to the breakup of a theft ring working in Blue Lake, Arcata and Eureka, she said.
Because the Blue Lake Casino is in the unincorporated portion of the county, it falls under the jurisdiction of the Humboldt County Sheriff’s Office. The Rancheria has contributed more than $120,000 to the sheriff. The funds, Ganion said, go toward keeping the sheriff’s McKinleyville substation open.
The annual allotment of $3,000 to the city of Blue Lake hasn’t changed since the Casino’s opening, although representatives have met intermittently and are expected to gather in about two weeks, Buck said. It’s likely some sort of adjustment may be discussed.
“If there’s impacts,” the city manager said, “we’ve got to mitigate them.”
Departmental statistics shared with the council and the public show sizable increases between crime data collected in 2002 -- the year Blue Lake Casino opened its doors -- and 2005. Particular spikes are revealed in burglaries, 4 in 2002 and 32 in 2005; marijuana sales, 4 in 2002 and 13 in 2005; driving under the influence, 2 in 2002 and 23 in 2005; and drunkenness, 3 in 2002, 12 in 2005. The end result is arrests and bookings that went from nine in 2002 to 372 in 2005.
Meanwhile, Gundersen said he is attempting to boost the police department’s staff and has funding to hire two more officers. Ideally, he wants to see at least six officers -- enough to cover three shifts a day, seven days a week.
Even with funding necessary to fill that staffing goal, the police chief said Blue Lake’s department is crippled by low pay rates compared to other area departments and the added competition from large city departments in that lure academy candidates with such bait as loans to buy homes, covering relocation expenses and high salaries.
“They (the police academies) do a good job, but the exceptional officers go to agencies with big money.”
Then, Gundersen said, there’s the issue of the cost of background checks -- sometimes for naught. While police academies do a good job of training new officers, that training doesn’t mean the candidates will pass background checks. Blue Lake’s Police Department does its own background checks on prospective officers -- a process that costs between $2,000 and $2,500 per applicant and possibly more depending upon Blue Lake’s distance from the applicant’s former residences. When a candidate fails to pass, the department is at least $2,000 poorer and still without a candidate.