ONTARIO — After hearing an impassioned plea from Ontario Police Chief Michael Iwai during a meeting on June 28, the Ontario City Council is now looking to the community for feedback through a poll on the city’s website. The chief is asking the council to rescind residency requirements for its approximately 40 staff members (not counting department heads) and if not, to make an exception for just the police department. The reason: difficulty in recruiting has caused the department to reach a point where they will not be able to cover all the calls.
“And I want that to be very clear,” Iwai told the council.
Tuesday’s presentation marked the 119th day in office for Iwai and while he wants to focus on the positives, he said Ontario Police Department is “at a critical need,” and that he needed help from the council to ensure they continue to fill vacancies, especially as the city sees more growth.
The department currently has 13 officers, but is down five positions for various reasons. As such, overtime has been accruing, including for those at higher rank structures. This is key when it comes to overall costs for payroll and how it impacts other departments, Iwai said.
Another predicament is the recommendation of 2.5 officers per 1,000 people.
“Are we just under 12,000 or the 55,000 folks here Monday through Friday and, I’ll argue, on weekends, as well? That would mean 30 police officers before you start poking holes at the variables.”
Another formula, the 60 rule, suggests at least 60% of resources are dedicated to patrol. That rule, Iwai said, is based on violent crime rates, crime index and property crime rates.
“I don’t need to tell you where we fit on those spectrums. We’re extremely high,” he said.
In less than two weeks, Ontario Police handled 365 cases, with five officers a day and a sergeant, at times. Staff constraints “limit our ability to be proactive where we can continue to deter crime.”
Iwai said the need was so critical that if one officer is critically injured “we will not be able to sustain patrol coverage.”
He said some philosophies in the city may need to change. This includes “no call is too small” for the police department, noting that larger agencies don’t respond to every call, giving a non-injury minor crash as an example. Another is that of employees having to live here in order to be vested in the community, stating that response time to get from home to the office could be addressed in collective bargaining agreements, and is in other similar agencies. He further noted there isn’t housing available for officers coming in.
“What i’m asking — I am actually begging you to consider — is to remove the requirement [to live within 8C School District boundaries] … ” Iwai said. “We should be focused more on response time and do we have resources, not concerned about where they live, in the interest of public safety.”
COUNCIL REACTION
The residency requirements, were enacted in 2018 by a council comprising altogether different members. All of the current members reaffirmed the resolution in 2021.
However, during discussion after Iwai’s presentation which spelled out public safety concerns due to Ontario Police Department’s “critical need,” three councilors said they now see things differently, one said he saw differently but it wasn’t going to be an easy decision and the council president and mayor said they would not support it. Councilor Sam Baker was not at the meeting.
Councilors Susann Mills, Eddie Melendrez and Michael Braden explained their change of heart.
Mills spoke first saying that since she voted yes she had seen “such a change in Ontario that I see a great need to have to expand the area to recruit new applicants.”
She said that doing so might even save them money on training, with qualified people already trained living a short distance away.
“I really feel that is a need to change that resolution so it expands to response time, not location,” she said.
Melendrez said a recent ride-along with an officer provided him “good insight” into the wage differences, with some officers in Oregon making a higher wage than Idaho. He said the officer told him that while they might get paid more they deal with a lot more.
“And that stuck with me and concerns for family safety living in this community and not being able to get away at times, and concerns from Chief Iwai. I’ll support the chief on what he wants, as well.”
Braden said that he believes “policy needs to be adaptive,” and that the council should look at “when it succeeds and when it fails.”
“I personally put high value in opinions and impassioned pleas from department heads and the police chief,” he said, then sought consensus to get it on the agenda in the near future to honor the request.
Councilor John Kirby was more neutral on the matter, stating that he understood the need, and had also heard about it personally from former Interim Police Chief Steven Bartol on his way out. Still, he said the decision would not be easy, noting that “a certain segment of citizenry in Ontario are really high on” residency rules.
At the same time, he noted that about 40% of his employees at Kinney & Keele True Value Hardware are Idaho residents who want a better wage.
“As much as I hate to do it, I say we’ve got to consider it,” he said, then added, “I can’t see we’ll be unanimous.”
Mayor Riley Hill asked about the difference between a fully vested officer here as it compares to nearby cities, and the answer was that Ontario pays more than Nyssa, Malheur County and Fruitland, but not OSP. Further, Iwai noted that Fruitland’s Police Chief is trying to raise wages to be more competitive with Ontario.
Hart supported putting the item on the agenda but said the city pays employees through its property tax base.
“And having employees live outside means they no longer support the city in paying their own wages,” he said.
Hart then implored Iwai to take more time and consider other barriers, saying that the residency barrier was “not a panacea,” and that if it didn’t work, the chief would be asking to tweak other areas.
“I don’t begrudge your ask, but at this time, I would not be able to support it,” he said.
Iwai said he appreciated the feedback, but noted that in a lot of local civic groups, many members came from Idaho to participate. At the end of the day, 40 city employees isn’t a “huge tax base anyway.”
“First and foremost, and at some point, the public safety aspect is going to have to trump the philosophies on city employees ‘paying their fair share here.’”
RECENT PAST
In 2019, the city was preparing to go to court over the constitutionality of the requirement, but ultimately settled with the police officer who was faced with losing his job over not living within the established boundary of the 8C School District.
Ontario Police Association, the union that represents Ontario Police Department had expressed concerns over the matter in 2018, stating a strong objection for numerous reasons. Among those was “a smaller pool of qualified candidates,” as cited by Iwai at Tuesday’s meeting. Additionally, the union cited “financial onus” for the requirement; “dissension” between those employees required to live here and those grandfathered into the rule who do not; and the Janus U.S. Supreme Court ruling, decided in June of 2018.
The latter of these concerns referenced public-sector union employees’ rights to participate in political interests outside of the residence area. Forcing someone to live in a certain town may preclude them from political interests in their own town.
Jack Orchard, a private attorney at law, further expressed how residency requirements can cause challenges with suitable housing and disruption to school years for children.
During his presentation, Iwai provided statistics for local public safety agencies, noting that for those, the majority live outside of their service area. Local agencies included in his data were Snake River Correctional Facility (about 82% live outside of Ontario, and of those 72% live in Idaho); Oregon State Police Ontario Command (about 92.5% outside of Ontario); the Sheriff’s Office (about 70% outside of Vale); Nyssa Police Department (50% outside of Nyssa); and Fruitland Police Department (about 50% outside of Fruitland).
The impacts of the city’s resolution is not just a lower applicant pool, the chief said. It is causing continued staffing issues, delaying call response time, limiting proactive policing, negatively impacting officer health and wellness, as well as causing burnout and retention issues.
HISTORY
On Tuesday, Kirby said the residency issue stretches back to the Ontario School District, saying “they faced it and never reconciled the problem.” He said the problem started due to Superintendent Nikki Albisu living in Idaho, and she “still lives in Idaho and it’s created a lot of bad blood.”
Hart also pointed to the school district, saying he worked on various bond efforts and saw many fail. He said “part of that frustration is when teachers don’t live in the district and can’t support [those bond measures],” saying that made the difference when going to the community to ask for more money.
It’s worth noting that during budget conversations this year, Hart suggested if the city’s contract for dispatch services with Malheur County Sheriff’s Office got too costly, they might consider outsourcing that need to another country, such as India or the Philippines, further noting contracted service providers get a break not afforded to city staff.
Citizen Ben Peterson floated the idea of the residency requirement to the City Council in February of 2018. He also had proposed a similar policy for the Ontario 8C School District in May of 2015, but it ultimately failed. The school board decided that the most qualified candidates wouldn’t always live in the school boundaries and that not living here didn’t make them any less committed to the job, which often requires an investment of time outside of school hours.
Peterson’s recommendation to the city was to require future “administrative” staff hired on by the city to live in city limits, not “rank and file” employees. He also recommended incentivizing current employees not living in the city, to move to Ontario.
The city ultimately passed the residency rule in February of 2018, but it was not exclusively for administrative staff.
The resolution requires department head positions, not contracted out, to live within the city limits (or to move within those boundaries by six months from their hire date). Furthermore, the resolution requires any existing city employees who are promoted to those positions to move into that boundary within 12 months, or risk termination of their employment. The resolution also stipulates that future city employees are required to live within the 8C School District within six months of being hired.
It should be noted that the City Manager, Police Chief, and Fire Chief are already required to live within the city boundaries by City Charter.
The law also incentivizes current city employees to move within the boundary area by offering a water/sewer credit of up to $50 per month for those city employees paying for those services from the City of Ontario.
