CENTRAL — The Central City Council decided Tuesday to continue having the East Baton Rouge Parish Sheriff’s Office provide much of the city’s law enforcement, cooperating with the Central Police Department.
Next year it will cost $500,000 more than in previous years.
Sheriff Sid Gautreaux proposed the new contract to Central and to St. George, which both have police chiefs but not full-time police officers, to account for strain on his own budget.
The sheriff’s office handled crimes in the Central area before the city was incorporated and has continued to take calls and handle criminal investigations there since the city was formed.
Central Mayor Wade Evans said the cost of the agreement with the sheriff’s office will increase annually but will not go above $2.515 million.
Councilman Tim Lazaroe abstained from voting because he is a reserve deputy with the sheriff’s office. All the other council members voted in favor of what’s called the “hybrid model.”
Central Police Chief Roger Corcoran, who worked for sheriff’s office for many years and retired before running for chief, told councilmembers that he supports the hybrid model. He discussed the idea at length on a recent episode of UWK’s podcast Louisiana Unfiltered.
He said the two agencies work well together, both on response to calls and on investigations.
“We work very well with the East Baton Rouge Sheriff’s Office. We work all crimes together. We work all cases together. We work with the DA’s office well,” Corcoran told council members.
He said he supported continuing the hybrid arrangement, and still hopes to grow the department into a full-time, full-service agency.
“We can go with that. We can keep working with that, and we’ll continue to move forward,” he said.
The Central Police Department is largely a part-time operation. Corcoran and his secretary are the only full-time employees.
Corcoran told UWK that his department has 33 part-time employees, including patrol officers, dispatchers, a detective and a person who handles evidence. Given that those employees can only work 29 hours a week and get no benefits, Corcoran said it’s difficult to get staff to stay there long-term. They move on when they find full-time jobs, which the chief said he understands.
At Tuesday’s meeting, Lavergne said he supported the hybrid even though he did not vote on the proposal.
“Sheriff Geautreaux has been incredibly gracious to us by providing 20 years of primary law enforcement to us without asking for anything else, but at some point we’re going to have another sheriff,” he said. “We don’t know what he’s going to bring to the table, so that’s a reason to keep what we have now.”
Councilman Britton Myer agreed.
“I truly feel like that is the best way to keep crime out of our city, as we have been doing for the past several years now. That’s not to say at some point down the line that with the right funding mechanisms, CPD might not have a full-time police department that’s supplemented by the sheriff’s office, but right now I think the best model for us is to continue what we’ve been doing and get the best bang for our buck, and have two great law enforcement services working together as partners in the community to keep safe,” Myer said.
Several Central residents told the council at Tuesday night’s meeting that they supported the hybrid model.
Terry Summers said he was concerned about the expense of establishing and maintaining a full-time police department with equipment needs, insurance needs and employee benefits.
“The sheriff’s department can provide a much, much better service to our citizens at a greatly reduced cost than what it would cost us,” Summers said.
“There’s nothing illegal or unethical about our relationship”
In other business, Mayor Evans acknowledged at the council meeting that he is having a relationship with a member of his staff. He said he filed for divorce in January and subsequently started the relationship with Jenn Kimble, his executive assistant and public information officer.
Gossip about the relationship had escalated since Evans was injured in a wreck in his city-owned vehicle on May 19. Kimble was with him at the time of the crash.
Evans said the he spoke to City Attorney Kyle Celestin about whether the relationship created a legal or ethical problem. Celestin took the question to a state ethics attorney and Evans said he also spoke to a former attorney for the Louisiana Municipal Association.
“The consistent conclusion was that there’s nothing illegal or unethical about our relationship,” Evans said.
He said he “intentionally removed” himself from decisions about a cost-of-living raise for administrative staff in the budget passed Tuesday.
“Unfortunately, what we are witnessing is a series of politically motivated attacks” online, Evans said.
He said he has limited himself to 15 minutes of Facebook a day to reduce his frustration.
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