HDSO calls out Supervisors and Measure Z committee

 

The Humboldt Deputy Sheriff's Organization (HDSO) represents the front line public safety officers who take great pride in keeping our community safe. 

Along with our families, friends, and neighbors, HDSO members are also taxpayers who worked hard to pass Measure Z in 2014 and Measure O in 2018 because we know we can do a better job protecting our community with more resources. 

The voters agreed with us and we overwhelmingly agreed twice (56.95% in 2014 and 73.87% in 2018) to tax ourselves to better meet public safety needs like Humboldt County’s official website promised: How will Measure Z address my public safety needs? Due to budget constraints, Sheriff’s patrols have been greatly reduced across Humboldt County, meaning it can sometimes take several hours for a Sheriff’s deputy to respond to a call. If enacted Measure Z can provide the funds necessary for expanding patrols, maintaining emergency 9-1-1 response times, and making sure calls about violent or property crimes are responded to promptly.

Also, volunteer fire departments and firefighters play critical roles in protecting life and property here in Humboldt County. Additional resources will help maintain rural fire and ambulance protection services, allowing our first responders to better – and more safely – protect County residents. 

However, in the six years since Measure Z passed, Humboldt County has spent over $70 million dollars in an abysmal failure to deliver on the core mission of Measure Z, to “provide the funds necessary for expanding patrols, maintaining emergency 9-1-1 response times, and making sure calls about violent or property crimes are responded to promptly.” 

This  is  not  due  to  lack  of  effort  or  interest  by  the  Measure  Z  Committee,  but  due  to  a  failed employee  recruitment  strategy  and  lack  of  focus  on  the  core  mission  of  Measure  Z  by  this committee  and  the  Board  of  Supervisors.

 The  County  and  the  Measure  Z  Committee  have  refused  to  do  what  it  takes  to  attract  and retain  the  sheriff’s  deputies  to  increase  the  number  of  qualified  personnel  patrolling  our communities. 

 Instead,  the  County  has  stubbornly  chosen  a  “pay  to  train  rookies  and  hope  for the  best”  strategy  to  fill  the  open  positions  at  the  Sheriff’s  department. What  has  been  the  result  of  this  strategy?    In  short  -  it  has  been  a  disaster.    Taxpayers  have sent  the  Measure  Z  Committee  $70  million  for  better  public  safety  service,  and  the  sheriff’s department  has  almost  identical  staffing  levels  to  those  in  2015,  but  with  decades  of  experience gone  to  other  agencies  with  better  benefits,  or  retired.  

As  a  result,  Southern  Humboldt  is  still without  24  hour  coverage,  as  is  all  of  eastern  Humboldt.    Neighborhoods  around  the  core Humboldt  Bay  area  are  still  patrolled  by  Deputies  stretched  thin  and  having  to  work  twelve-hour burnout-inducing  shifts  without  the  increased  coverage  and  improved  response  that  voters  were promised.

HDSO’s  membership  stands  behind  the  leadership  of  Sheriff  Honsal,  who  has  been  working hard  to  implement  the  County’s  failed  recruitment  strategy.    But  no  matter  how  hard  the  Sheriff works  to  recruit  deputies,  he  cannot  attract  deputies  to  come  work  one  of  the  toughest  beats  in all  of  California  when  the  job  doesn’t  even  pay  as  much  as  the  tiny  cities  of  Arcata  and  Eureka, not  to  mention  the  fact  that  the  California  Highway  Patrol  offers  far  greater  wages  and  benefits.   

The  result  is  that  the  only  way  to  fill  new  positions  where  future  deputies  are  woefully underpaid  is  to  offer  taxpayer-paid  training  to  rookie  deputies.    The  result  is  that  the  Measure  Z funds  are  spent  training  some  who  fail  out  of  the  program,  and  those  who  are  good  enough  to make  it  start  their  careers  by  filling  the  position  of  an  experienced  deputy  who  just  left  to  join another  department  in  another  community,  and  make  more  money  doing  it.    We  simply  tread water  in  our  staffing,  while  continuously  replacing  experienced  deputies  with  new  rookies.  The average  level  of  experience  for  our  patrol  officers  is  less  than  six  years.