The Scappoose City Council is considering dissolving its police department and outsourcing its law enforcement to the Columbia County Sheriff’s Office.
It’s a similar conundrum facing many small cities: How to fund law enforcement amid soaring costs with limited sources of revenues.
As with many police departments across the country, Scappoose — an Oregon city of about 8,000 residents, located 20 miles northwest from Portland — has struggled to recruit and retain officers. The department has seven officers plus two sergeants and a lieutenant, according to city public safety director Brian Jensen.
The low figure means there are some hours when no officers patrol city streets. Some officers will work on-call shifts, meaning they respond to certain call types.
A Scappoose Police vehicle parked outside Scappoose High School on April 7, 2024. The Scappoose City Council is considering eliminating its police department and contracting with the Columbia County Sheriff's Office.
Joni Land / OPB
City Councilor Kim Holmes said she’s heard from local businesses and residents who are concerned about increases in crimes during these hours. Holmes is serving her first term, having run on a platform to provide Scappoose with 24/7 police coverage.
“The absence of on-duty police was apparent to the community,” Holmes said. “We’re continuing to kind of struggle building our own police department.”
Scappoose Police Lt. Chris Fluellen said the department has around half the staff it needs. Increasing pay could be a way to convince more officers to stay, since Columbia County and other neighboring agencies offer a larger salary, he said.
“We do offer a lot of things that I think people do like our department for, (including) that small-town feel,” Fluellen said.
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Transferring all of its police assets to the sheriff’s office would likely be a logistical challenge for Scappoose. All officers would have the option to transfer to Columbia County, and Sheriff Brian Pixley said in an email to the city that all police equipment would become property of the sheriff’s department.
The city is also in the midst of negotiations with the Scappoose Police Guild, the union representing city’s officers.
Holmes said the city could also explore how to fund 24/7 police coverage on its own, or continue with officers working on-call shifts. The city plans to eventually mail a survey to residents asking for their thoughts on the future of their police department.
How Scappoose residents feel will likely dictate which way the council moves. At the city’s annual town hall meeting on April 7, some doubted whether the city would actually eliminate its police department or that crime was as bad as social media had made it seem.
Peter McHugh, a longtime educator and former city councilor, said he thought the city might be making a mistake by paying the county for law enforcement duties, because it may not be able to go back.
“If we decide we’d like to have our own department back, it might be very difficult to do that without a lot of money,” McHugh said.
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All this comes after a turbulent couple of years for the Scappoose Police Department. Previous police chief, Steve Lougal, resigned in January after less than two years after the job. He had replaced Norm Miller, who resigned in 2021 following a vote of no-confidence held by officers in the department, according to the Columbia County Spotlight.
Multiple officers have also faced criminal prosecution over the past three years, most recently in February after an officer allegedly misused the department’s law enforcement database, according to court records.
Jensen, the city’s public safety director, said the council plans on making a decision sometime in early May.