The Salt Lake County sheriff's office takes over Draper's Police Department on July 1, though the officers behind the squad-car wheels will probably be the same ones who now work for the city.
When they unanimously approved the move Tuesday, members of the City Council said it made sense financially because a proposed annual contract with the county would cost tens of thousands of dollars less than what the city pays to run the department now.Salt Lake County commissioners endorsed the change Wednesday. Sheriff Aaron Kennard said he will return to the commission later with requests for staffing and funding to execute the terms of the contract.
The deal apparently eliminates any possibility that former Police Chief Hans de Haas will return to the helm of Draper law enforcement.
"Liability and economics," were the main reasons Councilman Jeff Rasmussen supported the moves; his comments echoed those of other council members. "And professionalism. I would like to see us go to another level."
"I hope it's only a temporary kind of thing, but it could be a long kind of thing, and it could be a wonderful thing," Rasmussen said.
City Manager David C. Campbell said Draper, in a few years "as the city grows," might be better positioned to field its own police force.
Kennard said the town's six full-time deputies, once they pass a battery of tests, will be first in line for the Draper assignments, a development several citizens said they would welcome.
"I want these officers!" resident Craig Barber said. "I'm kind of partial to home-town flavor and home-town government."
Kennard said the county will have an officer patrolling Draper every day around the clock and that he might also add a "canyon patrol" to the rural countryside surrounding Salt Lake City's southernmost suburb.
The deputies assigned to the town will drive a sheriff's car bearing a Draper logo, though the city symbol likely will be dwarfed by the county's standard insignia.
Several citizens objected to the move, arguing that the council should've first resolved questions about de Haas' status. Before the council vote, De Haas' attorney, Erik Strindberg, demanded to know what fate de Haas faced should the Draper Police Department become a county entity.
"Will he have a job?" asked Strindberg.
"We're not prepared to answer that question yet," City Attorney Hollis Hunt said. "We simply don't have enough information."
Strindberg said he was "putting the city on notice" that it has not heard the last from his client, who resigned in January amid allegations of impropriety. De Haas was rehired briefly several weeks ago after threatening to sue the city, but the reinstatement was put off after the council was forced to face a public angered by the quiet reinstatement.
After Tuesday's vote, Strindberg persisted loudly on knowing how de Haas might fit into the picture under the sheriff's supervision, engaging briefly in a shouting match with acting Mayor Todd Anderson, who pounded his gavel for silence.
Kennard said the former chief would be considered for a deputy sheriff's appointment in Draper if he can pass muster with the Department of Public Safety's Police Officers Standards and Training division.
The agency is doing what it says is a thorough investigation of de Haas' law-enforcement past, which includes time in Southern California as a police officer for the city of Westminster, where he was cleared of wrongdoing in two incidents that led to police-brutality allegations. De Haas later became a private detective and killed a man while serving divorce papers on him, according to news accounts, but he was cleared of wrongdoing in that case as well. POST investigators say they are trying to gain access to de Haas' closed California files to learn more about his history.
Rasmussen said shifting police protection to the sheriff's office has been considered for some time.
He recited a letter de Haas wrote in January in which the former police chief suggested that unless major changes were made in the department immediately and unless the city immediately invested more money in it, "I would recommend the city contract to the county sheriff's office at once."
Some council members and several residents said de Haas had been "crucified" by public disclosures of his past and the local allegations against him. And Councilmen Randy Gainer and Clair Huff said Draper has been shabbily portrayed by publicity surrounding the affair.
Others disputed those contentions, however.
"If people have been defamed, they have defamed themselves," Rasmussen said.
Some council members seemed testy after weeks of being in a public eye that has been more attentive than usual because of the Police Department's problems.
"We don't make rash decisions, haphazard decisions," Councilman Clair Huff said.
"If you don't like it, this coming election run . . . get up here yourself," said Wayne Ballard, another council member.
De Haas' reappointment was opposed by all seven of the city's full-time police employees as well as 13 reserve officers. All of them stood in solidarity against it at a May 19 public hearing.
De Haas, who has denied any wrongdoing, has argued that he should be rehired because city officials broke the terms of his resignation by talking about him with others. But city representatives have said de Haas broke the pact first by interfering with police operations after he quit.