Josephine and Curry counties occupy Oregon’s rural southwest corner. For many residents, a call to 9-1-1 could well be answered by a dispatcher saying there’s no one available to come to your aid.
Voters in both counties will decide on May 19 the fate of proposed property tax levies. The measures would raise money to restore severe cuts in law enforcement that were made after voters repeatedly and decisively shot down previous levies.
In Josephine County, Sheriff Dave Daniel’s troops are spread pretty thin …
Dave Daniel: “Basically we’re running, at times, one sheriff’s deputy, but typically it’s between two and three deputies on patrol for ten hours a day.”
That’s in a county of 83,000 people, covering more than 1,600 square miles. And if you need a deputy outside those ten hours a day? Except for the City of Grants Pass -- which has its own police force – you’re more or less on your own. County resident Scott Draper …
Scott Draper: “In 2012, 80-year-old June Rice was found dead next to her motorized wheelchair hours after she wandered away from an adult care facility in the Murphy area in sweltering 99-degree weather. And because of budget cuts, exactly that, the Sheriff’s Office didn’t have any deputies scheduled to work until 3 p.m. that day. In fact they didn’t even hear about it till that evening.”
Draper is on the committee that’s proposing a five-year levy that would raise money for 16 more deputies, more jail beds and re-opening a juvenile justice center that‘s been shuttered for lack of funds.
Out on the coast, Curry County Sheriff John Ward is down to four deputies in his entire department.
John Ward: “Being the chief law enforcement officer of the county, it’s my job to protect all citizens. And I find it very, very difficult to do that with four deputies.”
Ward says his deputies patrol alone, with no backup. And there’s no one to take a call between midnight and 8 in the morning.
The primary cause of this situation is both counties’ historical reliance on federal timber payments.
More than 62 percent of the land in Josephine County is owned by the state or federal governments. In Curry County, it’s 67 percent. Government’s don’t pay county property taxes. For decades, the feds shared the proceeds from timber sales with the county, and those funds were the mainstay of county budgets.
That allowed property tax rates to stay really, really low. Josephine County has the lowest tax rate in Oregon, with Curry County right behind it. But in recent years, the decline of the timber economy has meant a lot less federal timber money going into county coffers. That’s led to sharp cutbacks in services, including law enforcement.
In Curry County, Sheriff Ward is pushing a three-year levy that would allow him to triple his force to 12 deputies, ensuring round-the-clock patrol response with backup.
But Jake Pieper says there’s a reason levies keep failing.
Jake Pieper: “With every levy proposed, they keep telling the voters the services they need. And they’re not listening to the voters that are saying, ‘No, these are the services that we want. We don’t want to pay for any more.’”
Pieper is a city council member in Brookings, a coastal city of about 6,000, just north of the California border. He says a lot of voters take a minimalist approach to government.
Jake Pieper: “Y’know, in Curry County there’s also a big contingent of people that have the idea that all they need is a big dog and a gun and they can take care of themselves.”
Pieper says he plans to vote against the levy because he simply doesn’t trust the county to use tax money wisely. That mistrust is heard in Josephine County, as well. Bill Hunker lives in Merlin. He wrote a statement against the levy in the county voters’ pamphlet.
Bill Hunker: “When you have ten safety levies being proposed and nine of them gone down already, somebody’s not listening to somebody.”
Hunker agrees the Sheriff’s Department needs more money. But he says the levy proposal was developed without sufficient input from voters.
Bill Hunker: “So, my time around is we vote it down so we can get a fresh page and start again.”
Starting again is probably the last thing levy proponents want to do. But if the past is any guide, both measures will face an uphill battle to persuade voters in Josephine and Curry Counties to dig deeper into their pockets to fund government services.
