At Monday’s Dakota County Board of Commissioners meeting, the future of the county’s involvement with the City-County Law Enforcement Center was the main topic of discussion.
At issue was whether or not the county would submit a notice of termination letter to the City of South Sioux City, effective Aug. 31, 2025, as part of a 30-year-old agreement between the two parties that came with the construction of the law enforcement facility in South Sioux City.
When it was first constructed, the two law enforcement entities shared space with a single dispatch that communicated with both parties on situations that were called in via the city/county 911 system. Both parties had their own office space, but current Sheriff Chris Kleinberg moved the Dakota County Sheriff’s Department to its present location at the Dakota County Jail after taking office in 2011 to save on transportation costs.
At issue is whether or not the county should continue to pay the $50,011.25 it pays monthly for the facility, or if they should pay a lesser amount since their use of the facility is primarily just for dispatch services. The two sides can renegotiate those terms, and were expected to do so in the coming year with the original agreement set to expire in 2025.
Board chair Martin Hohenstein said he has had discussions with South Sioux City Mayor Rod Koch and City Administrator Lance Hedquist about renegotiating the deal.
“I have talked to a number of people at the city, and they say they are willing to sit down and take a look at the contract,” he said. “It hasn’t been looked at since it was written in 1996, and both sides want to sit down and look all the way through the contract.”
Hohenstein said that both parties were looking at meeting after the city and county finish their work on their respective 2024-25 fiscal year budgets, adding that he didn’t feel a termination notice letter needed to be sent.
“That is to terminate the contract and I’m not looking at terminating anything,” he said. “I don’t think the county needs to start that up and then have to go and duplicate those (dispatch) services.”
Board member Bob Giese felt that a letter should be sent so that the city is aware that the county wishes to renegotiate the terms.
“I think we need to send a letter that we are serious about renegotiating the contract,” he said. “Neither side is going to walk away from it.”
Hohenstein disagreed.
“They said they’d work with us in good faith and I’m comfortable with that,” he said. “If things fall flat during negotiations, then you would do that.”
Board member Scott Love said that the county would be foolish to disconnect from the agreement altogether.
“There’s no way you could set up a communication center (for the county) for the money that would be involved,” he said, pointing to the equipment and salary costs the county would take on.
Giese said the county should put together a specific list of what their obligations to the LEC center would include.
“If I’m South Sioux City and I say ‘What do you want us to reduce or cut from the county’s obligation, budget-wise,’ I think we need to have a specific list of what we need to cut.”
At the end of discussion, Love moved to not send the letter to the city, saying he felt South Sioux City officials “are good enough people that they’ll work with us on it.” The motion was approved on a 3-2 vote, with Love, Hohenstein and Brian VanBerkum voting in favor. Giese and Troy Launsby voted against the motion.
(The complete story is in this week's edition of the Dakota County Star. Pick up a copy at a newsstand near you, or call 402-494-4264 to start your subscription.)
