CANYON CITY — Grant County officials made a private counteroffer to John Day’s police funding proposal last week, but the city manager made the issue public by putting it on the agenda for a special session of the City Council on Tuesday, Feb. 1.

When the council voted unanimously to suspend the city’s cash-strapped police department in October, it also directed City Manager Nick Green to make a proposal to the Grant County Court: the city would hand over all its property tax revenues, $300,000 a year, to the county for law enforcement services. In exchange, the city wanted $300,000 a year from the county road fund for street construction to spur housing development.

County Judge Scott Myers said he wanted the county attorney to review the proposal before putting it on the agenda.

In mid-December, County Commissioner Sam Palmer and City Councilor Gregg Haberly initiated informal discussions with Sheriff Todd McKinley, whose department has assumed responsibility for law enforcement in the city limits.

To date, the matter still has not been deliberated by the county commissioners in open session.

However, on Jan. 21, the county’s legal counsel emailed the city’s attorney a formal proposal laying out the conditions under which the Sheriff’s Office would provide law enforcement services for the city.

Rather than let the lawyers hash out the details in private, Green called for a public discussion between city and county officials to go over the deal’s particulars.

In a Thursday, Jan. 27, email copied to the Eagle, Green told John Day’s city councilors that it appears the county had not discussed the proposed agreement publicly during a county court session.

Green proclaimed the proposed agreement and correspondence between the city and county’s respective attorney’s is now a “public document.”

Dominic Carollo, the county’s legal counsel, sent John Day’s lawyer Jeremy Green two proposals. One assumes the city will be able to transfer a $375,000 federal Community Oriented Policing Services grant to the county; the other assumes that doesn’t happen.

According to the proposed agreement, if the COPS grant is not transferable, the cost for three deputies to patrol,the city would be an estimated $371,000 a year. This offer, according to Carollo, would be the minimum contribution required for that level of service.

If the COPS grant is transferable and assuming the grant pays out $375,000 over three to four years, the city’s minimum cost would be $282,400 per year.

There is no mention of any county road funds coming to the city.

In the agenda packet for the Feb. 1 City Council meeting, the city manager complains that the County Court has “consistently declined to meet as a quorum to discuss the police transition or (Secure Rural Schools) funding for street improvements.”

Last spring, the city requested a work session with the court to discuss using county road funds to spur home building in the city. At the time, County Judge Scott Myers told Green that the county would need to consult with its attorneys and get back to them. But, according to Green, the county has yet to get back to them.

“There is no reason for the county court to send us terms for an agreement that were never discussed or approved publicly,” Green wrote to the City Council. “It’s essentially just a contract to continue patrolling John Day for this additional sum above and beyond our current property taxes.”

Green writes that it is common knowledge that the county and city are discussing a proposed law enforcement service agreement.

He added that Grant County Sheriff McKinley had said on plenty of occasions that his office is in “dire need” of additional resources. “Furthermore, public safety is a core function of government,” Green noted.

“There is no reason I can think of to keep this within attorney-client privileged communications,” Green said, “and I am not going to spend my time trying to figure out how they came up with it.”

Jack Orchard, a lawyer from Ball Janik LLP who specializes in public meetings law, said government agreements of any kind must be disclosed and publicly voted upon.

“They are available as a public record,” Orchard said. “No attorney-client privilege is present.”

Orchard said he did know of a reason that a public body would have to go into an executive session or other discussion closed to the public to deliberate on such an agreement.

While terms of the agreement have not been discussed in an open session of the County Court, Palmer mentioned during his commissioner’s report at the Wednesday, Jan. 27, session that he had been in a meeting with Grant County Sheriff Todd McKinley and John Day resident John Rowell regarding a law enforcement agreement with John Day. Without going into specifics, Palmer told the court that information had been reviewed by the county’s legal counsel and had been sent to John Day’s lawyer.

Palmer said he has documentation through email that is obvious to Myers and County Commissioner Jim Hamsher that he had been asked by McKinley and John Day City Counselor Gregg Haberly to meet in a committee to hammer out a law enforcement agreement.

Palmer added that he “purposefully” wrote in those emails that he could not make any decisions without getting the court’s approval.

The plan, according to Palmer, was to work with Haberly, McKinley, and others to form a foundation for a proposal to bring to the court for discussion and approval.

“I’m not trying to hide anything from anybody,” Palmer said. “We met in the courtroom, and I hope this isn’t a parting shot at the community on Nick Green’s behalf because they don’t like him. That’s not what public servants do.”

Palmer, who told the Eagle last month that Green’s initial offer for John Day to give the county $300,000 for law enforcement services in exchange for an equal amount of county road funds is a nonstarter, said Green’s “parting shot” only hurts the citizens of the county.

“Where the rubber hits the road is because the governments can’t get along, the citizens pay,” he said.

Green, who announced last month he will resign as John Day’s city manager by June 30, is, in Palmer’s opinion, not accountable to the community like an elected official such as himself.

“Nick Green as the city manager has no skin in the game,” Palmer said. “He can resign or stay, and he is not accountable to the public. He’s only accountable to the council, who is accountable to the citizens.”

Green said in an email Friday, Jan. 28, that he disagrees with Palmer that roads and policing should remain separate.

“That he can’t see the connection between streets for housing and property taxes from that housing to fund basic government services like law enforcement should sound alarm bells for all county residents, regardless of where they live,” Green said.

Green said that asking John Day voters to pay a premium to fund the county’s staff while declining to ask the same of all county residents and then hiding behind their attorneys is simply not justified.

“When they are ready to come up with a fair agreement and stand by that agreement in public, then we should listen,” he said. “Until then, we have more pressing concerns.”

For his part, McKinley said Green’s implication that the county is attempting to make a backroom deal with the city is wrongheaded.

“The public knows we’re trying to get something done,” McKinley said. “I think a negotiation step would be, ‘Hey, this is something we’ve come up with, what do you think of it?’”

The sheriff added that the talks between the county and the city, which began nearly a month ago, are essentially in their “infancy stages.”

Myers concurred with that sentiment in a Friday, Jan. 28, phone interview. According to Myers, it would not be practical to discuss the proposal during an open session because it would be difficult — at best — to answer questions from the public while the county and the city work to come up with a foundation for the agreement.

Myers said he only discussed the proposal with Carollo and that he did not discuss the proposal with the other court members or deliberate with the commissioners behind closed doors.

He said he tries to be careful about what he disseminates when asked if the proposal should have been made public, and that he tries to maintain a balance of being judicious about what he shares, but, at the same time, open and transparent.

“It’s tough to do,” Myers said. “It’s tough to decide what to share and what not to. We’re not trying to hide anything, and we never have.”

Myers said he does not know when the topic will be put on the County Court agenda.

“No one is prepared to close out a deal,” he said. “And the county and the city are so far different on what they want to do with the money and what we want them to do with our money and whether or not any of it’s legal.”