Council Approves Further Police Merger Study

The Burlingame City Council approved moving forward with creating an implementation plan for merging Burlingame Police Department and San Mateo Police Department records and dispatch services.

During a presentation by representatives from Folsom, Calif.-based Citygate Associates, the group commissioned in , it became clear to council members that eventually Burlingame will have to merge its records and dispatch—not from an economic standpoint, but an operational one.

Dwane Milnes of Citygate said as a small city, Burlingame will eventually be unable to provide the dispatch services necessary and should look to a regionalized plan.

“This is not whether, but when you have to join a regional dispatch service,” he said, noting that any savings would be minimal. “Can you continue what you’re doing? Yes. Will you eventually be back at looking at regionalization? Yes.”

While Citygate was commissioned to study both a partial merger involving just dispatch and records and a full merger, council members agreed that if no significant savings were involved, taking a full merger off the table might be in order.

“The idea of losing a police station is not going to work for me,” said Vice Mayor Jerry Deal.

The goal of the meeting was not to determine if a merger should occur. The sole purpose was deciding if city staff should move forward with creating an implementation plan for records and dispatch service. The plan would answer questions posed by council members and be brought before the council for further discussion before any decisions are made.

“I want to be very clear we’re just talking about a possible merger,” said Mayor Terry Nagel.

The council questioned whether, if Burlingame will need to eventually join a regionalized dispatch service, they should wait until more local police stations are prepared for a merger.

Both councilmembers Michael Brownrigg and Ann Keighran expressed concern that the city would undertake merging dispatch and records services with San Mateo only to have a larger, more regionalized system appear briefly after.

“The concern I do have is futuristically,” Keighran said. “I’m afraid we’re going to go through all this work and then it’s going to change a year or two later.”

Brownrigg suggested an interim plan and council asked city staff to try and gauge the status of other nearby cities, noting the possibility that a San Mateo and Burlingame dispatch merger might pave the way for others to join.

Council members also questioned the implications of losing record services in Burlingame, which deal with everything from a traffic ticket sign-off to a theft report.

The implementation plan would examine the cost of maintaining some record service in Burlingame, from having one staff member at a kiosk in City Hall to a record substation at the existing police department.

A kiosk is expected to cost about $100,000 a year with a more full-service substation costing $300,000. With savings of only about $280,000 per year anticipated in a records and dispatch merger, any savings would be minimal.

A dispatch and records merge would eliminate six positions between the two departments. It would also require a reworking of some positions. The records and dispatch departments are very intertwined in Burlingame, offering each other support. A merger would require standardization of these positions.

The cities also use different dispatch technology and electronic reporting systems, and a merger would necessitate a blending of systems and training staff, a one-time cost of about 80 percent of the yearly savings.

Burlingame resident Kathy Meriwether was wary of any merger.

“Ever since the first day I read Burlingame and San Mateo in the paper I’ve been shaking in my shoes,” she said. “We just don’t match with San Mateo, both size-wise and type of crime.”

“I’m not seeing the benefits here…but I’m seeing all the downsides.”

An implementation plan will come back to the council for further examination.