Grants Pass citizens receiving their voter pamphlets in October will see not only the usual array of state initiatives, but also two different public safety levies. One asks you to pay for City police and fire, the other to pay your proportionate share of what it costs the County to arraign, prosecute & house criminals. It may prove confusing if you don’t start figuring it out until it’s time to fill out your ballot, so here is a rundown on what the two are about.

Measure 17-22 is the local option levy that must be renewed by city voters every four years. The cost per $1,000 of assessed value is currently $1.49. The current levy expires June 30, 2009; the new one would take effect July 1. This year’s levy request increases the rate to $1.89. According to the city’s Public Safety Chief Joe Henner, the increase would cost the average household an extra $52 per year. It pays for city police patrols, equipment and investigations, and for city fire services. In its first year the levy would generate about $4.5 million.

Henner notes that for the first time, both public safety functions will soon be housed under the same roofs, in two new locations. Both the Redwood Public Safety Station on Leonard Road next to Redwood Elementary and the Parkway Public Safety Station at the Parkway Bridge will be nearing completion as voters begin casting their ballots next month. He points out that the Parkway station is costing $196 per square foot and Redwood comes in at $221, compared to $297 and $355 for similar recent projects in Medford and Ashland.

“Yes/Police/Fire” signs have become familiar icons around town, suggesting popular support for continuing the levy. There are detractors, some from surprising quarters. One Redwood Avenue merchant who always votes Democratic says he’s not supporting the levy because city patrols and investigations have never deterred or apprehended any of the regular burglars who break into his shop every year. Council candidate Richard Michelon is also critical, saying that the public safety levy promotion that “all property taxes go to public safety” is not quite true. He claims that over a million $$ is for administration costs, which have increased 17% over last year. Another Council candidate, Andy Margeson, says “City voters have usually been supportive of the Public Safety Department and attitudes reported in the City’s most recent survey were generally positive, so I am optimistic.” He says he has no feel for what will happen to the County public safety levies, “but we all know the history.”

Measure 17-25, popularly known as the Sheriff’s District 1 Levy, Sheriff’s District 1, would encompass the entire county, including people in the City of Grants Pass. Its tax rate of 99 cents per $1,000 of assessed property value would fund adult jail operations, civil process service, court security, emergency management coordination, the search and rescue coordinator, the records division, dispatch and communications staff and administration. The tax on a property assessed at $130,000 would equate to about $129 a year. The tax would bring in about $5.4 million in its first year.

Measure 17-26 would create Sheriff’s District 2, which would fund the cost of Sheriff’s patrols in the county. As city residents have their own police, they are not being asked to participate in District 2 funding; this measure will appear the on ballots of county residents only.

City residents have never been asked until now to pay for County prosecutions. However, these are dire times for the County with the loss of O&C funding. The Sheriff’s Advisory Committee looked at the number of criminals moving through the courts and jails, and recognized that with the highest concentration of population in the county, Grants Pass was generating much of the traffic through the county justice system. The failure of past public safety levies for the Sheriff’s office taught a hard lesson that county residents are either unable or unwilling to fund Sheriff operations at full strength.

Boosters of the two-district system that’s being proposed are hopeful that city residents will support the notion of paying for the cost of those services that they already receive from the Sheriff’s department, and that are essential to the orderly operations of keeping the peace within the city. The city and the county have long had a mutual aid agreement that allows one department to back up the other in certain situations, and the other services included within the District 1 proposal like Search and Rescue are as important to city residents as they are to those within the county.

Some city watchers worry that the decision to raise the amount of the renewing city public safety levy while building two “fancy” new fire stations, at the same time that city residents are being asked to help pay for county sheriff operations, will be a deal-killer for both. There’s also still a lot of disgruntlement over the city’s handling of the River District Plan, leaving officials vulnerable to accusations that their ambitions for city development have outstripped residents’ willingness to pay for further improvements. Ongoing discord among city council members is another problem, as it tends to make voters distrust leaders who can’t get along with each other, and to reject tax increases when asked. Whether these factors will be decisive come election day remains anybody’s guess. -Julie Rubenstein