Biggs may keep Gridley police

A last-minute deal may keep the tiny Butte County town of Biggs under Gridley's police protection, barely two weeks after a split seemed certain.

A new two-year law enforcement contract would keep the Gridley-Biggs Police Department in one piece by lowering the agency's cost to Biggs, which earlier balked at continuing to pay more than $650,000 a year to protect fewer than 1,800 residents. The Biggs City Council ratified the terms Monday night, and the contract would take effect April 1 with the Gridley council's approval.

The pact would forestall Biggs' planned contract with the Butte County Sheriff's Department, which its council passed Feb. 22 and which would have removed the town from Gridley's police system in August. Gridley added Biggs to its police coverage in 2001.

"We think this is fair for both of us," Biggs City Administrator Pete Carr said Monday before the council vote. "Because we're not out on the highway, Biggs is different, and we've got a different level of need." Under the new contract, Biggs would pay Gridley $391,008 for the year ending March 31, 2011, and $406,644 the year after that. According to Carr, the deal solidified after Gridley dropped an earlier request to restore the current charge in 2012-13, instead leaving future fees open to negotiation.

Lowering Biggs' share of policing costs is meant to reflect the city's share of police calls, by far the smaller of the two partners. Incidents and reports from Biggs are about 16 to 18 percent of the total, according to Assistant Chief Brian Cook.

Biggs began soliciting other policing arrangements in September, and the Sheriff's Department offered to extend its services there through a deal in which the city also would have paid a community service officer to patrol the town. Butte County would have charged $268,815 for the first year and $239,721 in the second.

But the county's proposal did not include traffic enforcement, and Biggs' inability to contract with the California Highway Patrol to fill that gap led it to reopen talks with Gridley, Carr said.

Contact Appeal-Democrat reporter Howard Yune at 749-4708 or hyune@appealdemocrat.com.