Clearwater City CouncilI'm having a hard time trying to understand the thinking of our Council. In your September 24th Gazette, they stood firmly against using the Sheriff's office for our law enforcement services. It appears they did not even discuss it until after the budget was approved. Vice Mayor Gibson had a conversation with the Sheriff and it appears that this is the total research that was done and the idea was then over. We then had quotes like "I would hope that we would not have to have this discussion again" and "I think we can say that we've put this to bed, hopefully for a long time." Then we have the Sheriff saying that a saving of about $10 million was a conservative figure with no reduction in services. Other cities seem to be happy with the Sheriff's services as quoted in the article. Are we so flush with funds that it is not necessary to consider this proposal? Maybe I'm just confused but it seems like our Council has had to do a lot of cutting this year while increasing our taxes! - Lars Warn, Clearwater
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