In response to a letter from five West Valley police chiefs last week, Maricopa County Sheriff Joe Arpaio said he stands by his initial decision to close booking operations at the satellite jail in Surprise, stressing that his agency is facing a tight budget crunch.

Police chiefs from Surprise, El Mirage, Wickenburg, Youngtown and Peoria drafted a joint letter Nov. 19 pleading with Arpaio to reconsider closing the booking station at the Bell and Dysart Jail, a key resource for West Valley agencies.

Now they must transport their criminal suspects to the Fourth Avenue Jail in downtown Phoenix.

The Surprise outlet was one of three closed by the sheriff due to county budget cuts. The other two were in Avondale and Mesa.

The Sheriff's Office fired back an incensed reply Dec. 3.

"This is obviously an attempt to publicly attack this agency," wrote Brian Sands, the sheriff's chief of enforcement operations. Sands penned the response on behalf of Arpaio.

The letter was hand-delivered the day it was written to the city managers of the cities taking part in the initial plea, because "they are the bosses of the city, not the police chiefs," Arpaio said Monday.

Arpaio maintains the police chiefs demonstrated poor etiquette by giving the letter to the media before he could see it, he said.

"They never had the courtesy to let me know, to sit down with me for a cup of coffee," Arpaio said. "That's not good professionalism."

Arpaio said neither the West Valley city managers nor the police chiefs have responded to his letter.

And neither parties plan to until Thursday.

That's when the West Valley Chiefs' Association will gather for its monthly meeting. Because the first letter was drafted as a group, the rejoinder will have to be discussed before it is written.

On the meeting's agenda: Sheriff Joe's letter, and brainstorming alternatives to transporting prisoners to the downtown jail.

"We want to be united on this," said Parrish Spisz, spokesman for Buckeye Police Chief Dan Saban, who is the president of the police chiefs association.

Sgt. Mark Ortega of the Surprise Police Department agreed.

"Because it came from a committee, it has to be responded by a committee," Ortega said.

El Mirage Police Chief Michael Frazier is afraid this is the beginning of a "tit-for-tat" dispute between the police agencies and the Sheriff's Office.

Frazier said he hopes to maintain an open dialogue and reach a solution that results in an efficient means to transport prisoners.

"I don't see them clearly changing their minds at this point," he said. "Anyway, we have to continue to look at all the options available to us."

Arpaio said he understands the predicament the police agencies are facing. But he ultimately must take care of his "overtime problem," he said.

The letter states closing the booking stations will keep overtime costs down, addressing a claim by the police chiefs that "there is no apparent savings in taxpayers dollars."

Arpaio said the 24 deputies manning the jails were paid overtime to be at the suburban jails.

This is not the first time Arpaio has closed down satellite jails. He did it in 2000, and that decision lasted a year, he said.

 

After a preliminary discussion Monday in Surprise, leaders from six West Valley police agencies came to a common conclusion on dealing with the recent closures of booking operations at two area satellite jails: appeal to Sheriff Joe Arpaio for help.

Police chiefs from Surprise, El Mirage, Glendale, Peoria, Youngtown and Wickenburg will draft a letter this week to Maricopa County Sheriff Joe Arpaio, asking him to reconsider closing the Bell and Dysart Jail in Surprise, a resource these cities have used to book crime suspects.

The holding facility was one of three suburban booking stations to close last week as a cost-saving measure by the Sheriff's Office. The others were the Avondale Jail and the Southeast Jail in Mesa.

 

With these closures, all 26 police agencies in the Valley will have to book people at the Fourth Avenue Jail, and that "certainly causes some concern," said Surprise Police Chief Daniel Hughes, who hopes the letter will open up some dialogue.

Previously, Surprise police officers traveled about a mile east to book suspects, but now a roundtrip ride downtown could take almost two hours. And that's not factoring in the time it takes to wait for someone to get booked, Hughes said.

On a good day, that could eat up six hours of an officer's shift, he said.

"If Surprise gets there, and we're behind Mesa and the Sheriff's Office (in line,) and then there's DPS, we could be the sixth, or even eighth person to book a person," Hughes said. "That could take awhile."

The closures hurt the small agencies even more, said El Mirage Police Chief Michael Frazier, who needs at least four to six officers on the street at any given time.

Consequently, that could take two officers off the street, which will create "an unsafe situation for the community and for our officers responding to calls," Frazier said.

In the event the letter to Arpaio produces no results, the West Valley police chiefs came up with two possible solutions:


• Utilize Glendale Police Department's booking facility. The downside is, the facility only books misdemeanors, and felonies will still be taken downtown, Hughes said.


• Establish a rotating arrangement among agencies, where a different city will take the reigns each day

Last week, the Sheriff's Office said it was up to these agencies to find ways to bring their inmates to the downtown jail.

"I hope (Sheriff Arpaio) takes into consideration the local community and certainly what's best for all of us, and that's having the satellite facilities opened," Hughes said.