The merger of city and county law enforcement will get more study under a group approved by the Emporia City Commission and Lyon County Commission.
City commissioners voted to create the group Wednesday night, while the county concurred this morning. The action does not commit either the city or the county to a merger.
“This is to study, not to take action,” City Attorney Blaise Plummer said Wednesday night.
Later, the city and county will be asked to decide on the study group’s membership, mission and budget.
The idea of consolidating the Emporia Police Department with the Lyon County Sheriff’s Department has been suggested before, most actively in the 1970s. The current suggestion came out of a joint city-county committee charged with reviewing agreements between the two governments.
Although Commissioner Ray Toso voted to study the issue, he also said he thought the committee had overreached its original purpose.
“As I stated last week, the purpose of this committee was not to study city-county issues but to formalize agreements between the city and the county,” Toso said. “And so far, I haven’t seen a lot of what the committee was established for. ... In nine months, I would think we would have made some headway in formalizing these agreements. As far as I know, it has gotten nowhere.”
Mayor Jim Kessler, a member of the committee, said the committee was formed to study the agreements and that the consolidation discussion arose in the course of that.
“It came up that this might be an opportune time,” he said.
County Chairman Marshall Miller, who is also part of the committee, noted this morning that several small towns in the county already have cooperative agreements with the Lyon County Sheriff’s Department.
“It’s going to be important in forming this task force that we consider the outlying communities,” Miller said. “It’s a consolidated effort and they need to be included in the discussion.”
The members and process of the study group will be suggested by the committee, but final say rests with both commissions.
A small budget is possible to cover expenses such as photocopying and stamps.
If the group recommends consolidation and the commissions agree, Miller said, the issue would go to a countywide vote.
“The 2008 fall elections would probably be the soonest time it could come to a public vote,” Miller said today. “And that could cause some confusion because we also elect a sheriff in 2008.”