Crime Check restoration gets backing

Spokane County’s top two law enforcement officers are backing a sales tax increase to pay for a return of 24-hour-a-day nonemergency crime reporting.

The plan would ask voters to increase sales tax from 8.6 percent to 8.7 percent in most of the county. Mayor Dennis Hession signaled his endorsement of the plan Friday in a letter to county commission Chairman Mark Richard.

“Our citizens tell us that they want Crime Check restored, and this mechanism would provide us the funding for that to happen,” said the letter, which was signed by Hession and Spokane Police Chief Anne Kirkpatrick.

Police and sheriff’s officials have decried the loss of Crime Check since the end of 2004, when the system was scaled back and renamed the “Spokane Crime Reporting Center” because of Spokane city budget shortfalls. The county and cities that used Crime Check split the cost.

The new center only accepts reports by phone 12 hours a day Monday through Friday and for nine hours on Saturday. Knezovich said crime reports have dropped in half since the end of Crime Check.

“They get frustrated and they hang up,” Knezovich said. “In order to fight crime you have to know where it’s being committed.”

Knezovich met with Kirkpatrick and three area fire chiefs about the proposal on Friday. He said each of them supports the tax plan.

County commissioners will decide if the plan makes it on the November ballot.

Richard said he and Knezovich were unsuccessful last year in trying to persuade Hession to support refunding Crime Check for 2007. The commissioner said he’s open to the tax proposal but is concerned about asking voters to pay higher taxes when the county is likely to ask for more taxes for a new or renovated jail. On top of that, voters likely will be considering new taxes on parks, transit and other items in the next coming years.

The Crime Reporting System costs about $720,000 a year, Knezovich said. It would take almost $1 million more annually to run it 24 hours a day.

The tax would go to the county’s 911 system and also pay for upgrades to the emergency communications infrastructure. Knezovich said there’s a need for $25 million or more to upgrade the system.

“When 9/11 happened, the biggest problem they had was failure to communicate,” Knezovich said. “We can fix that so it doesn’t happen in Spokane County.”

In 2004, county voters approved a 0.1 percent sales tax to provide additional money for public safety for five years. Then-Sheriff Mark Sterk asked that the new money be earmarked for communication upgrades, citing a 2002 county report that said the communication system was in a “critical situation.” But county commissioners said needs were too diverse and great to set money aside for one cause, especially at a time when Spokane and Spokane Valley were considering laying off officers.

Because it’s not earmarked, Knezovich said, it’s difficult to track where the money has been spent. He and Richard vowed that that wouldn’t happen in a Crime Check proposal.

“I want to make sure that whatever we do is clearly outlined to voters,” Richard said. “I don’t want it bleeding into something else.”

Knezovich said whenever he addresses organizations like the Lions Club or Rotary he hears the public’s desire to bring back 24-hour reporting.

“The first questions that are usually asked are about Crime Check,” Knezovich said.