City shelves PD proposal as proponent says he may run for city council

Although city leaders didn’t move forward with his proposal for a Destin Police Department during Monday night’s city council meeting, Sky Monteith is not discouraged and says he will continue to push forward and look for ways to save the city money.

“It went about like what I expected,” Monteith told The Log Wednesday. “I didn’t figure they would take any real action, but at the very least they would be able to use it as a tool against the sheriff’s bid.”

In the roughly 35-page proposal, Monteith, secretary for the Libertarian Party of Okaloosa County, lays out his beliefs as to why a Destin PD and a Destin Reserves Police Force would be a more cost effective option than that of the Okaloosa County Sheriff’s Office.

To read a copy of the proposal, CLICK HERE.

The city is currently facing a 28 percent ($342,000) increase for law enforcement services as they look at the sheriff’s proposed 2011-2012 contract. The city paid $1.22 million for the service of 17 additional deputies last year, and is now facing a payment of $1.56 million.

Looking at Monteith’s counter, he says a Destin PD would operate with a pay and benefit package of $1.7 million and a 2 percent increase each year for four years. This would bring the cost to $6.9 million, which he says would be less than the sheriff’s cost of $7.2 million based on a 15-20 percent increase in the same time.

“I realize this can’t be done overnight, so you have to get started sometime,” Monteith told city leaders. “These prices depend on what the market is at the time; they won’t be this way forever.”

With questions in hand, Councilman Larry Williges said the city had a study done in 2002, which estimated a startup cost for a Destin Police Department in the range of $1.4-$1.9 million.

“You indicate a startup cost of $600,000, which is about one-third of that,” Williges said. “I’m wondering where this big difference in money comes from?”

Monteith said he was able to cut costs in his proposal by utilizing surplus vehicles and eliminating “wish list” items, which is something he says Okaloosa County Sheriff Larry Ashley didn’t do in his budget.

“Their price was almost $40,000 a unit and that was in 2002,” Monteith said. “Our unit cost is right at $10,000 and that’s for surplus vehicles.”

“If you want to get everything shiny and new then it’s going to cost $2 million,” he added. “But there is no need for that; this is a city of eight square miles. You are not going to be doing hundreds of miles a day (of patrol).”

Other concerns circled around the nuts and bolts of running a police force, union representation, salary and support services, such as a SWAT team and crime scene investigators.

As the questions kept coming from the council, Monteith seemed to be getting somewhat frustrated. At one point, he told Williges “maybe it’s good that you are retiring.” Tempers also flared a bit when Williges questioned him about his proposal not calling for a SWAT team and other support services. 

“What we need in this city is response to citizens and traffic, which is what’s going on here all summer long,” Monteith said. “That’s what the people want. This is not gangland… this is the beach.”

Admitting he was a little frustrated at the meeting, Monteith said he has done “everything he could” to make this proposal a reality, but “Wiggles,” as he referred to Councilman Williges, was “was trying to make things stick.”

“There are just some people who don’t want change,” Monteith said. “With him (Williges) retiring, I think I am going to run for a city council seat as a libertarian candidate.”

Having been re-elected in 2010, Williges will remain in his council seat until 2014.