Two California cities have made the decision over the past week to essentially fire all their police officers and contract with other agencies. 

One city, Maywood, went as far as to fire all their city workers and contract them out, according to Publicceo.com.  You can also read about it at Publicceo.com.

And the city of San Carlos, in the Silicon Valley, recently made a move (4-1 by the Council) to contract out its police force. The move will eliminate the jobs of 32 officers and save the city $2.5 million a year, according to Bloomberg Businessweek.

The City of Santa Ana has quietly outsourced a lot of jobs over the past two years, because of our own budget crisis.  But no one at City Hall wants to consider outsourcing our police department to the Orange County Sheriff’s Department.  But it makes a lot of sense.  We are critically shorthanded in our police department. 

Could we outsource and add more cops in the process – while still saving a ton of money?  Shouldn’t we at least consider this and run the numbers?

The O.C. Sheriff’s Department is already located here in Santa Ana.  They already provide services at the County Hall of Administration and they are on call when our own police need help, via a mutual aid agreement.

Don’t get me wrong, our police do a fine job for the most part, although I still think they target minorities and immigrants with their DUI checkpoints.  But our city is broke.  Shouldn’t we consider all options in trying to resolve our budget crisis?

And the O.C. Sheriff’s Department already provides police services throughout much of Orange County, as you can see in the graphic above.  In fact they are the cops in some of Orange County’s wealthiest areas!  Surely they could do the same here?

Now if it turns out there are no savings to be had, well then forget it.  But at the very least we need to put this on the table…