In the video below, Tommy Lynch reports from Valier, where the law enforcement contract is coming up for renewal, and the town wants ideas on what to include in the contract.
Law enforcement issues in the town of Valier were addressed at a town meeting on Monday night concerning the lack of enforcement for ordinances within the town. The town council invited the community out to their meeting to discuss potential solutions as they search for an answer.
Valier Mayor Glenn Wunderlich said, “We just need ideas”
Wunderlich began the meeting by asking the public for suggestions on how they can clean up the town.
Wunderlich said, “We are having a little bit of problems enforcing our town ordinances.”
Ordinances include things like parking violations, dog complaints and the like. Currently, there's no real way to enforce the ordinances, and this is an issue among many smaller towns and cities in Montana.
President of Valier’s town coucil Steve Nelson said, “A lot of towns, they can't afford… their own police departments. So, they actually contract with the sheriff's department to take care of their local issues.”
Nelson explains that the problem goes beyond ticket writing. Processing and prosecuting tickets costs a lot of money and resources the town does not necessarily have, and even high fines are not guarantees.
Nelson said, “When it gets to the judge’s level and they just decide, ‘This is not something I either want to deal with’, or they give a fine that's so small that it doesn't have any effect on the person who did it. And so, you're just constantly dealing with the same thing over and over again.”
The goal is to find a solution before the law enforcement contract lapses in June, and to have a new contract that explicitly calls for stricter following of ordinances.
Nelson said, “Not everybody's going to be 100% happy with what happens. But if we can get the majority of the town to be like minded on a particular whatever we decide that we do and who we work with, if they're behind us, then we'll just do their bidding.”
Some citizens want to contract Conrad’s police department, which would then be spreading Conrad’s resources thin. this is not fully out of the question, and Conrad PD did show up to the meeting to show their support for a fellow Pondera County town, but others worry that turning away from the Sheriff’s office contract could lead to a new set of problems.
Nelson said, “We're hoping that, that the county sheriff's department can work with us more.”
Ultimately, nothing was decided on Monday night, but it was a crucial first step for the small town toward finding answers.
Nelson said, “I just think it's amazing that we had a bunch of people come to this meeting that, expressed their opinions and whether we got anywhere tonight, it's going to be a process.”
Suggestions can be left at the town office at the Civic Center in Valier, or click here.
