Baker City residents deserve to have police patrolling their neighborhoods 24 hours a day, seven days a week. Needing to call in an off-duty officer in an emergency, which inevitably leads to delays that can put people in danger, is not acceptable.

That has to be the starting point for the discussion the Baker City Council and other officials began during the council’s meeting Tuesday, June 28.

Councilors decided to schedule a work session on the topic in September.

The matter came to the public’s attention sooner than city officials planned. Last weekend social media posts claimed that the police department, starting Aug. 23, would cease patrols between 3 a.m. and 7 a.m. daily.

Police Chief Ty Duby and City Manager Jonathan Cannon met Monday morning, June 27. Duby acknowledged that ending 24-hour patrols is a possibility, and that department data show the 3 a.m. to 7 a.m. period has relatively few calls that warrant an immediate police response.

Duby said he had asked a department employee to put together a draft schedule based on 10-hour patrol shifts rather than the current 12-hour shifts, a change that would curtail patrols from 3 a.m. to 7 a.m. Duby said that proposed schedule was mistakenly released as an actual pending schedule.

Duby told councilors Tuesday that he and Cannon always intended to discuss the situation with the city council before changing the patrol schedule.

The social media posts thrust the issue to the top of the council’s agenda Tuesday — and rightfully so.

Reducing police patrols by any amount is a significant change in public safety, and one that demands a robust public discussion in which residents have ample opportunities to express their opinions.

This is even more vital given that the city council just recently agreed to Cannon’s plan that drops ambulance service from the city fire department’s duties (Baker County has hired a private ambulance company to replace the city) and reduces the fire department’s workforce from 16 full-time equivalents to 10.5.

Duby told councilors Tuesday that maintaining 24-hour patrols is a challenge even when the police department is fully staffed with eight patrol officers. The city has six now, with one officer in training and the city looking to hire another soon. The department also has three sergeants, two detectives and the chief.

The problems Duby described in a Monday, June 27 interview aren’t easy to dismiss.

To maintain 24-hour patrols, officers often have to work overtime. Sometimes they’re not able to take compensatory time off when they ask for it.

“They’re overworked,” Duby told councilors.

He said the work schedule has contributed to officers resigning, saying the city has lost one or two officers on average for more than a decade.

That’s hardly ideal. Although the city needs to have 24-hour patrols, achieving that goal by pushing officers to the point that they leave town is no bargain. We need to consider the well-being of the officers who protect us.

The solution might well require the city to boost the police budget to hire more patrol officers. Duby said as much Tuesday, telling councilors “it all comes down to money.”

Regardless, city residents, having recently seen the city council oversee major cuts in the fire department, are likely to object, vociferously, to further reductions in public safety.

As they should.

— Jayson Jacoby, Baker City Herald editor