A lot of information has been shared about the upcoming vote to annex the City of Battle Ground to Clark County Fire District 3. The reason annexation is being considered is to protect quality emergency services for our community. It’s important to remember that emergency services include police as well as fire and emergency medical services.
Our police officers are working very hard to deliver services the community expects, but we simply don’t have enough officers to do everything. Most people would be surprised to know that in 2009, we had 27 sworn officers serving 17,150 people. In 2019, we had 24 officers serving 21,520 people. That is 11 percent fewer officers serving 25 percent more citizens over this 10-year span. Those staffing cuts mean less service for our citizens. We want to do better.
Traffic safety is the number one issue we hear about on our police tip line. However, we just do not have enough patrol officers to consistently respond to traffic issues other than injury accidents and DUIs. With annexation, we would have the resources to build an actual Traffic Unit for more patrols, better education and enforcement.
We also do not have the staffing to adequately investigate nonviolent crimes. This is unfortunate because most people expect the police to address those livability issues like narcotics activity, identity theft, vandalism and property theft. Annexation would provide the revenue to investigate and solve these crimes, and provide the service citizens expect.
