EVANSVILLE —The immediate merger of the Evansville Police Department and the Vanderburgh County Sheriff's Office likely won't be a part of any final proposal to consolidate city and county governments.
At a joint meeting Thursday evening of city and county officials who are drafting a final merger proposal to present to voters next year, city couincil members said their constituents oppose combining the law enforcement agencies.
Now the law enforcement issue becomes if, when and how the topic of combining the two agencies will be addressed.
Both the council and commissioners must approve identical proposals for it to appear on the ballot.
Three council members, all who represent wards, opened Thursday's weekly joint reorganization workshop telling other officials, that their constituents do not support the law enforcement plan proposed by the citizen reorganization committee. That initial proposal calls for a merged law enforcement entity that is headed by the elected county sheriff.
"I've been going to my neighborhood meetings," said Ward 2 representative Missy Mosby, "and talking to a lot of different people and the consensus of people in my ward who I have spoken with is that they really don't want this combined."
Ward 4 Councilwoman Connie Robinson and Ward 5 Councilman John Friend immediately made similar statements.
At-large Councilman H. Dan Adams called it (combining the departments) a potential "killer."
Curt John, another at-large councilman, expressed concern the proposed law enforcement structure greatly hinders the chance of the entire proposal eventually gaining voter approval, no matter what the rest of the proposal lays out.
"This is an issue that could either make or break the entire request to consolidate the government, John said. "As long as it is in here I think the plan could be in jeopardy."
Even current Vanderburgh County Sheriff Eric Williams, the main architect of the original law enforcement language in the proposal, spoke with John before the meeting about alternatives if the two agencies remained separate.
While he still advocated one department under a government that merges every other aspect of the city and county, Williams said if law enforcement stays separate there should be language in the proposal that exempts it. Without that, he and Evansville Police Chief Brad Hill both said it leaves the two at the whim of the new government.
"(We shouldn't) just leave out law enforcement from the plan and then we revisit this every few years and the turmoil erupts again in each of our departments," Hill said.
County Commissioner President Lloyd Winnecke directed Williams and Hill to meet and discuss possible jurisdiction lines under a merged government. Both seemed content with keeping the two districts largely the same, though they admitted there are some "islands" that exist that should be changed.
Ward 3 Councilwoman Wendy Bredhold was the only member of the joint committee who expressed desire to continue to explore combining the two departments.
"I would like to put something in there that it would be addressed in the near-future if it's something we don't touch right now," she said.
Bredhold was not the lone supporter of addressing it at a later date, though there was no consensus on when and how officials should consider a future law enforcement merger.
Adams said he wanted to see the issue explored in five years as well as language that would make the separate jurisdictions flexible as need be. Williams, who told the joint committee it should result in a guaranteed referendum vote, suggested 10 years if it wasn't going to be done right away. Commissioner Marsha Abell, who said the issue definitely should be addressed in the future, proposed 2020.
Hill said he was comfortable with Williams' suggestion of 10. But he said officials should merely revisit the issue, not guarantee a vote, though he'd rather see language in the final proposal that prevents any possibility of a merged department "for a very long time."
"It is just restirring the pot, so to speak," he said. "It has been a very contentious issue right now, and I don't think law enforcement is the issue in consolidation."