By By MIKE VOSS
mike@wdnweb.com
Contributing Editor
Some people who attended the Washington City Council meeting Monday may have left earlier than expected and disappointed.
They showed up at the meeting expecting to hear discussion about the possibility of the Beaufort County Sheriff’s Office taking over policing duties in the city. That discussion didn’t take place.
At the beginning of the meeting, Mayor Archie Jennings informed the audience and television media the issue was not on the council’s agenda and would not be discussed that evening. Jennings did say that if the matter comes before the council, it would take several months to explore and for the council to reach a decision about the matter.
Apparently, the proposal to have the sheriff’s office take over police protection in Washington has its roots in conversations between some city and county officials. Those conversations touched upon outsourcing some services provided by city departments and the city and county duplicating some services each provides.
Last week, Councilman Doug Mercer acknowledged he spoke with Chief Deputy Harry Meredith about collecting preliminary budget and staffing numbers concerning the matter.
In articles that ran Saturday and Sunday in the Daily News, council members and Beaufort County commissioners commented on the matter. Councilmen Ed Moultrie and Gil Davis did not provide their e-mailed comments in time to make those articles. Their comments, received Monday, follow.
“I had no part in any such discussions. I have not seen any figures, only a phone call from a Council member,” Davis wrote. “The Council as a whole needs to decide on what action it wants to take, if any. Until such time, I feel I should not discuss this matter.”
“The present rumor of the Beaufort County Sheriff’s Department taking over the Washington Police Department has been the talk all over the city. I have not shared my opinion on this issue. However, I am doing so now,” Moultrie wrote. “The chief and I talked two times this past week. We first talked about the 911 communications and whether or not these workers will have a job because of combining the two 911 call centers, which I am against. On our second meeting, it was then that I found out that Councilman Mercer and one of the deputies were looking at numbers to see if this would work. I sat there and talked with the chief who told me that the mayor had mentioned this to him. I sat there and heard in his voice that he was upset that such a thing was talked about without him knowing about it. I looked in his eyes, and then I saw his pain.
“I am against the sheriff’s department taking over the police department. That is like me, a Methodist preacher, saying that I am going to a Baptist church to pastor. Yes, both of them are churches, but it is two different denominations, and the methods of doing things are not the same. So it is with the sheriff’s department and the police department — two law-enforcement agencies, but two different operations.
“I respect my fellow council colleagues. I know that we are facing some hard decisions that we have to make coming up to the budget. My hope, my wish is that we leave our city employees alone. When I talk to some of the city workers, some don’t know what to think, don’t know what some on the council are going to do. The police departments in the past have had some problems, and with any department or agency, you will (have) issues to deal with from time to time. Is this the perfect department? No. However, I feel that the chief and his team are doing their best to make the Washington Police Department one of the best in the state of North Carolina. Let us protect our police department, as they have been called to protect us.”