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Woods Cross • A few times each month, Woods Cross Police Detective Dan Schultz — one of 12 police officers including the chief — doubles as a patrol officer driving the streets of south Davis County in an unmarked SUV.
Instead of pulling out evidence to look through on one mid-January day, Schultz pulled out a speed radar gun.
But pulling double-duty thanks to minimal manpower in a growing community may be a thing of the past for some south Davis County officers as Woods Cross, North Salt Lake and West Bountiful consider merging their police forces into one department.
The tri-city area accounted for 11 percent of Davis County crime in 2009, according to crime reports from the state's Bureau of Criminal Identification.
Woods Cross City Manager Gary Uresk said discussion about the idea intensified after Woods Cross Police Chief Paul Howard announced he will retire in April after 21 years as chief and 44 years in law enforcement. Eliminating one police chief salary would free up the city's budget for hiring at least one or two additional patrol officers, Uresk said.
The downside to merging the departments could mean losing local identity for communities, Uresk said. Consolidation would mean one police chief for the three departments.
"People in the community identify [with] that, he said. "If we go to a more unified metro [police agency], we lose that identity, and that is a big issue."
The talks of merging are "very, preliminary discussions" at this point Uresk said. So much so that a cost-savings analysis hasn't even been performed yet. But if anything the combined department would grow, not diminish its force, Uresk said.
"We are going to have to show this is going to be a benefit to the residents in the area, or there is no reason to discuss it," Uresk said.
But some residents are worried it may not prove to be a benefit.
When fire agencies in South Davis merged its forces around five years ago into one agency making up South Davis Metro Fire, former city council member and North Salt Lake resident Lisa Watts Baskin said she noticed a difference with the consolidation — detachment from the citizens.
"I know my police officers by name, some by their first name," Baskin said. "There might be that loss of connection [that happened when South Davis Fire was created] that helps with law enforcement. It certainly makes me feel more safe and secure as a citizen."
One thing is definite: The merge of three departments would combine nearly 40 officers rather than relying on an average of roughly 12 officers per agency.
West Bountiful officer T.J. DeCarlo said since officers already know and have worked with each other on various cases, it would help make a smoother transition.
"As a group we can patrol more troubled areas," DeCarlo said. "It could be huge for police, [having] combined resources police would be more aware of what is going on in their cities."
DeCarlo said he thinks there is a way to make a merger go smoothly.
"When you take three agencies with different [salaries] and titles and put them all in one group, there is absolutely going to be some hiccup," DeCarlo said, adding that as long as officers don't lose their ranks or retirement plans, he thinks the merge is "a great idea" and could really help the smaller departments with coverage.
The tentative idea is for the hub of the tri-city merge to be in North Salt Lake, with dispatch services continuing to come out of Bountiful. It is unclear how and if police response times would be affected by the change.
North Salt Lake City Manager Barry Edwards said "in essence, in some ways we are trying to formalize what is informally [already] going on."
Edwards said for North Salt Lake the motivator for combining forces isn't a cost-savings — the police department spends $1.9 million annually — it is to increase public safety.
"We see the need to provide more police officers on the street … and more police presence for the cities," he said.
What's next
A possible merger of the Woods Cross, North Salt Lake and West Bountiful police forces is being discussed at city council meetings in those cities.
A unified police force could become a reality as soon as July if all three cities approve of the idea, according to Woods Cross City Manager Gary Uresk.