LAKEPORT — The Lakeport Police Department this week swore in a sergeant as police supervisor and plans to update its contract with Lake County for dispatch services provided by the sheriff’s office.
On the Lakeport City Council agenda tonight is the approval of a new contract with the County of Lake for law enforcement dispatch services. Lakeport Police Chief Brad Rasmussen in a staff report writes that “The City of Lakeport has been in contract with the County of Lake for dispatching services dating back to the 1980s.”
Rasmussen notes that the current services provided to Lakeport by the Sheriff’s Office are: “dispatching police officers for service calls, answering emergency and non-emergency phone calls for police related services, as well as maintaining specific dispatch related record entries.”
“This current agreement is outdated,” Rasmussen writes, arguing that both agencies are interested in adopting the new contract, which would alter internal protocols to better suit current needs.
Rasmussen said Monday that the changes to the contract will not increase or decrease the number of calls answered by the sheriff’s office on behalf of LPD. “The public shouldn’t notice any difference at all,” he said.
The contract will be more costly than the old one, due to “general increases” in costs for the Sheriff’s Department and “additional dispatch duties” being required. The new contract is anticipated to cost the City $142,951 for 2019; the old contract stood at about $87,600 annually, according to Rasmussen.
The contract will not be the only change this week for the LPD.
On Monday morning in City Hall, Rasmussen swore in Sgt. Michael Davis to join the department as police supervisor. Davis, who was with the Lake County Sheriff’s Office for six years as a deputy and a sergeant, has worked for 22 years in law enforcement in California, according to Rasmussen.
Davis has worked for the Suisun City and Sausalito Police Departments, and has served as a correctional officer, a probational officer and a volunteer firefighter and EMT. In attendance at the swearing-in was Clearlake Police Chief Andrew White, who was hired to his current position from the Suisun City Police Department.
A war veteran, Davis served with the US Army’s 82nd Airborne Division between 1987–1991 and the California National Guard between 1991–1994. Davis holds a B.S. in Public Administration from the University of San Francisco and a M.S. in Emergency Services Administration from C.S.U. Long Beach.
With Davis sworn in, the LPD is nearly up to full staffing levels for its under-oath employees. According to Rasmussen Monday, the department now has just one of 13 police positions vacant, and applicants to that last position are currently undergoing background checks. “We hope to fill it after the first of the year,” Rasmussen said of the position.
