Mancos hires former deputy for law-enforcement transition

Mancos hires former deputy for law-enforcement transition

Dec. 7, 2000

By Tom Vaughan
Mancos Times Editor

The Mancos Town Board has contracted with former Montezuma County sheriff’s deputy Brandon Brown to help Town Administrator Tom Glover in planning for the town’s assumption of responsibility for municipal law enforcement.

The board made the decision at a special meeting Nov. 29.

Relations between the town and the sheriff’s office, which had been strained for a long time, broke down Nov. 9 when Sheriff Joey Chavez announced that he was terminating his law-enforcement contract with the town.

Chavez delivered a letter to the town in which he stated that the sheriff’s office would no longer provide services, effective Feb. 9, 2001.

The sheriff’s office had been providing the town with 120 hours per week of police coverage such as regular patrols and enforcement of municipal laws, for which the town paid $116,407 in the 1999-2000 fiscal year.

The town had requested a detailed accounting of the hours worked and miles drive by sheriff’s employees in the town, but Chavez said he and his deputies did not have time for further paperwork.

On Oct. 20, the sheriff’s office sent an emergency-response team to Mancos when a domestic-violence suspect barricaded himself inside a building. The incident stretched on for hours before the man was apprehended.

Then the sheriff’s office allegedly charged the hours its employees had accrued in that incident to the town’s contract and said the town was out of hours for the remainder of October. The town maintained the incident was an emergency to which the sheriffoffice would have responded with or without a contract, and said the town would only pay for the portion of October during which the sheriff’s department provided regular patrols.

Brown, who had been the deputy assigned to Mancos, was reportedly relieved of duty on Nov. 7.

In two separate motions Nov. 29, the Mancos Town Board employed Brown twice.

The board agreed to contract with him to work on preparations for activating the Mancos Marshal’s Office in January. During December, Brown will receive $2,200 to prepare the new law-enforcement vehicle for use, assemble a draft policies and procedures manual for the town, contact other agencies to get the position ready to advertise, and do other preparatory work.

The town board also decided to hire Brown as a full-time interim deputy on Jan. 1.

Both motions passed unanimously.

Brown’s exact salary is yet to be determined. He will be eligible to apply for the marshal’s and deputy marshal’s positions when they are advertised.

Town attorney Jim Hatter said the town needs to set a salary range for each position before advertising them in order to allow for varying levels of experience and training. He recommended advertising the positions for at least a month, noting that the Cortez Police Department had received 60 to 80 applications within the first two weeks when it last advertised a vacancy.

Glover said some applications have already been brought in.

The draft advertisements and position descriptions should go to the Personnel and Finance Committee at a Dec. 6 joint meeting with the Law Enforcement Committee, then to the board on Dec. 13 for final action.

Glover advised the board that the town’s assumption of law-enforcement responsibilities will cost it an estimated $2,245 in additional insurance coverage by Colorado Intergovernmental Risk Sharing Agency. That figure is based on a marshal being paid $30,000 and a deputy marshal receiving $28,000 annually; higher or lower salaries will change the insurance amount.

The start-up costs for equipment are estimated at $9,021, and Glover reported that some of the items are already on order. The biggest purchases are records software ($2,000), radios ($2,288) and handguns ($1,100).

Glover also advised the board that some modification of facilitties will be necessary to provide a holding cell and secure evidence storage. This may be a modification made to the existing town hall, or it can be factored into the modifications made if the town buys the old fire hall.

A grant application has been prepared for assistance in buying the fire hall. Grants are also being sought to help with the initial costs of setting up the law-enforcement program.

In response to a question about revenues from fines, Brown estimated that two officers writing two tickets per day could generate $30,000 annually in revenues, but he thought the figure would be about half that.

Former Mayor Tony Aspromonte, in the audience, reminded the board that "the essence of community policing is not to generate funds."