PORT TOWNSEND — Jefferson County commissioners approved a security services contract Monday that places county sheriff’s deputies at the Fred Hill Materials Shine Pit park and ride during the May-June Hood Canal Bridge closure, despite Jefferson County Auditor Donna Eldridge’s concerns about deputies working overtime and a request from Security Services Northwest to delay action.
John Alden, loss prevention manager representing Security Services Northwest before the commissioners Monday morning, said company president Joe D’Amico asked that the commissioners delay action on the matter, citing a possible conflict of interest.
D’Amico last week said the county commissioners were in effect creating business for the county Sheriff’s Office by hiring deputies and authorizing about $48,500 in overtime, which the commissioners granted in their consent agenda.
All three county commissioners serve on the Jefferson Transit board with two Port Townsend City Council members.
The contract came at the expense of Security Services Northwest, a private company, he said, and the commissioners were awarding the contract to the county at $60 an hour compared with D’Amico’s $40 an hour.
Dave Turissini, Jefferson Transit general manager, last week said the deputies would augment security service for Transit at the park and ride about 5 miles west of Hood Canal Bridge.
While deputies would work from 8 p.m. to 6 a.m. seven days a week, Turissini said Transit park-and-ride monitors would provide security the remaining 14 hours.
The decision, which Turissini said was made by himself and three others on the Transit staff, came down to the deputies’ ability to make arrests on the site, if necessary, while Security Services guards would have to call law enforcement to respond.
“We felt that both providers could do the service,” Turissini said. “But we felt that the sheriff had a little bit of an edge. If there was a problem, they would immediately have someone there. The fact that the cops were already there was a big plus.”
D’Amico’s response: “Is there going to be that much crime at the park and ride? Is al-Qaida coming in? Let us know.”
Eldridge told the commissioners that she heard from Sheriff Tony Hernandez that the Sheriff’s Office was already short deputies.
She added that she was concerned the deputies’ hours would deprive them of sleep.
“I know I need my sleep at night,” she said.
“I am hearing that they’re under-manned, and I’m not only concerned for those deputies but for the citizens of Jefferson County.”
County Administrator Philip Morley said the deputies would work at the park and ride off duty and that they were willing to do the work.
Both county commissioners David Sullivan and John Austin said they believed that the decision could not be delayed.
“Time is of the essence, because we have the bridge closure coming,” Sullivan said.
D’Amico in March protested the Jefferson Transit board’s initial authorization of the contract, stating “SSNW provided the appropriate bid proposal and clearly met the standards outlined in the [request for proposals] by the Jefferson Transit contracting officer.”
D’Amico argued that the Sheriff’s Office did not meet the requirements by not providing 24-hour security requested by the state Department of Transportation. DOT is replacing the bridge’s east half beginning May 1, and the park and ride will be part of an alternative ground and water transportation route across the canal during the six-week construction closure.
Malcolm Harris, Jefferson Transit’s attorney, said D’Amico’s proposal lacked adequate information compared to the Sheriff’s Office, and the department did not have to provide a valid business license being a government agency, as D’Amico contended.
“SSNW’s protest is without merit and is rejected,” Harris states in an April 3 letter.
In recent weeks, several other county residents have gone before the commissioners saying they agreed with D’Amico’s protest.
D’Amico summed up how he saw the situation: “It just stinks.”
D’Amico since 2005 has had an ongoing legal battle with Jefferson County over building permits at his Gardiner-based Fort Discovery training center, which today comprises a shooting range so his private guards can practice to meet state certification.
The county commissioners last rejected his request to move the firing range up into the Olympic foothills, south of Gardiner and Discovery Bay, which D’Amico said would take the noise away from the rural residential area near the bay’s western shore.
The ranges in 2005 were used for training military operatives for the U.S. Department of Defense, prompting bay residents’ complaints about repeating gunfire noise.
That led to a county stop-work order leveled on the security firm, because three buildings on the grounds didn’t have the proper building permits.
A hearing examiner in January 2006 decided that the entire business was illegal because of a lack of permits and ruled that it could not operate in any capacity.
Security Services Northwest has prevailed in a Kitsap County Superior Court appeal that deemed the business legal to operate because it existed prior to the required permits.
But the court asked the same hearing examiner to determine the “nature and scope” of the business prior to January 1992, when Jefferson County’s zoning laws were adopted.
That hearing examiner stated Security Services is allowed three employees.
As it is now, D’Amico has a shooting range that only employees of the security business are able to use for state gunfire recertification. The range is on 22 Discovery Bay acres that D’Amico leases from Discovery Bay Land Co.
Port Townsend-Jefferson County Editor Jeff Chew can be reached at 360-385-2335 or at jeff.chew@peninsuladailynews.com.
