ST. HELENS, Ore. — Staffing challenges in St. Helens are prompting a drastic move to covering the streets of the small town in Columbia County. Officers will no longer patrol the streets 24 hours a day, instead covering only 20 hours of the day.
"From my understanding, this has never happened," St. Helens Police Department Chief Brian Greenway said. "This is the first time in the history of the St. Helens Police Department that was established in the 1800s that this has ever happened (in that) we haven't had enough officers to serve our residents 24 hours a day."
Officers will work one of two shifts a day, covering 20 hours. During the other four hours of the day, no officers will be on shift but instead will be at home responding to calls as needed on an on-call rotation. This change went into effect Oct. 1.
"If a 911 call comes in to our communications agency, they will then call an officer if it warrants them to be called out," Greenway explained.
Greenway said because officers will be coming from home, needing time to get ready and to their patrol vehicles, response times will be slower.
However, "over 70% of our officers live in the city of St. Helens, so there will be a delay but not a significant delay. For those that don't live in our city and they're on call and they get called out to priority calls, we provide them with a vehicle, and they can use their emergency equipment, their lights and sirens to get to the call immediately," he said.
Calls will be prioritized based on how serious they are. The less serious calls that don't require an immediate response will be addressed when an officer comes on shift. Greenway said they will also rely on other law enforcement agencies to help out when they are able to.
He added that the Oregon State Police doesn't cover Columbia County 24 hours a day, and the Columbia County Sheriff's Office can sometimes have deputies that are farther away and unable to respond in a timely manner to his city.
Greenway, though, understands this situation isn't ideal.
"I would just ask that they have some faith, some confidence in their officers, myself and our administration that we're going to continue to serve. There might be times we have to make adjustments," Greenway said.
"I guess you have to do what you have to do," St. Helens resident Wayne Rofinot said. "I'm not happy about that. That's a window of opportunity for criminals."
Another St. Helens resident, Connie Skelton, added, "I think it will be OK. Not a whole lot of crime goes on here."
Greenway said that a bond measure voters failed to pass in May would have provided more money to hire more officers. The measure would have created an operating fund to increase officer staffing levels. If passed, it would have raised more than $800,000 over the 5-year lifespan.
He said elected officials will now need to come up with other avenues of funding to make it work, adding that that it's been difficult to hire the right officers for the small town's police department.
"St. Helens used to have 200 to 300 applicants for one or two jobs. We sometimes see — when all the dust settles — less than 20," Greenway said, adding that he doesn't know how long it will last.
The department has at least one job opening for a police officer on their website, and another officer retiring in October. With the job openings on top of vacation and sick leave, it means they aren't able to meet the full staffing levels.
"The magic number we need is 14 patrol officers to be able to continue 24-hours-a-day coverage," Greenway said.
The department won't say what hours officers won't be patrolling, as Greenway doesn't want residents to see a lapse in coverage and criminals to know when the streets aren't being patrolled.
"We don't want to advertise the hours our officers won't be on duty because we really do have to fight crime," Greenway said.